Hand Work & Wear We Are
October 23 – November 20, 2021
Composer John Morton and Artist/Engineer Rahul Saggar created an audience-activated environment in The Boiler, inviting visitors to experience a new appreciation of their sonic and spatial surroundings. Visitor’s movements activate a sensor that produces sounds, while their steps simultaneously wear away a walking path on a painted floor surface. The two inter-related installations explore both physical and sonic pathways, uncovering and revealing multiple layers of sound and color, mirroring our everyday meanderings and encounters.
From Morton -
"Hand Work is an interactive exploration of rhythm—both musical and environmental. As visitors move about the installation, a Lidar sensor in the center of the room sends proximity data to a computer; pre-recorded hand drumming is mixed & sonically altered depending on the location of participants. I have recorded two astonishing hand drummers—Glen Velez and Shane Shanahan and clips of their performances are “situated” throughout the floor space, giving the sense of a moveable and changeable drum circle. I am also including recordings I made of rhythmically-based environmental sounds, especially ones that are particular to the industrial setting of the Williamsburg neighborhood and specific to the boiler room. I have always had a preference to install my work in surroundings that have a history of industrial and human-intensive activities, with their associated noises, many of which may have disappeared completely from our soundscape."
About the Artists
John Morton’s installations include Central Park Sound Tunnel, exhibited in a pedestrian tunnel north of the Central Park Zoo, a music box project based on Darwin’s writings at Wave Hill’s Glyndor Gallery, Sonic Hotel, an immersive sound installation commissioned by the Adirondack Museum and Fever Songs at ODETTA Gallery and the Morris Museum. He has received support for his work from the NEA, NYSCA and NYFA, and was in-residence at Bellagio and Bogliasco in Italy.
Rahul Saggar is a New York based artist and engineer who has blended engineering and art for decades. His work has often fused traffic circulation with a visual representation of our movement and relationship to space, the trip path, and the inspiration for the movement. He attended the architecture and engineering schools at The Cooper Union, achieving a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree. He has led numerous large scale infrastructure projects throughout the NYC area.