My zine, EVERYTHING I HEARD OVER THE COURSE OF MY DAY, inspired a gallery exhibit at SUM Gallery, November 2024.
EVERYTHING I WROTE ALL AT ONCE
Ink on sheets of 8.5”x11” vellum
This is the entirety of my zine, EVERYTHING I HEARD OVER THE COURSE OF MY DAY, stacked and framed.
SO I MADE A TINY PIÑATA
During rehearsals one day I was thinking about ways to manifest or visually represent the letter ñ and was struck with the idea of having a giant ñ as a part of the set. Big enough for me to comfortably walk under the arch as the rabbit so I could make a GRAND N-TRANCE. Get it?! Ha! Mic drop! Curtain close! Standing ovation! I decided to mock one up for inspiration and half way through I was like, I think this needs to be a piñata. So I made tiny piñata. I’M SORRY IT’S NOT FILLED WITH CANDY. And no, you cannot hit it with a bat. Besides, why would you want to if there’s no candy in it?
I’m going to answer my own question: Because destroying it would fulfill its purpose. This reminds me of a project a did many moons ago where I made large cardboard, 3D letters that spelled out HELLO, knowing full well from the get-go that they would ultimately be used to start the giant bonfire in the field on the night of the big celebration. Making a work of art whose eventual purpose is to be destroyed is a very particular undertaking. Not unlike baking a cake, I suppose. But really, setting those letters afire whilst the crowd cheered filled me with rapturous joy.
So will ñ (enye) have a piñata in it, giant or otherwise? Time will tell. Either way, you still can’t hit the tiny piñata.
PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS of SOUND
I came across this piano roll and braille paper at Urban Source (a most excellent craft store that focuses on reusing materials - I highly recommend). They caught my eye as interesting examples of non-auditory representations of sound, something I have a deep curiosity about.
Piano rolls operate basically on the same principle that a music box operates on, but a little more involved - instead of metal nodes on a metal cylinder, the holes in the paper are what trigger the sound. Think Guitar Hero, but analog. :)
Braille is made up of raised dots on paper, the clusters of which represent letters which are physical representations of symbols we use to designate objects that also have phonetic sounds associated with them. So essentially each arrangement of dots has a corresponding sound. To me, the pages are mute. But knowing there is audio cloaked within those dots makes the experience of touching it enjoyable. I invite you to gently touch the pages and see for yourself.
The Braille pages got me thinking about accessibility. ñ (enye) relies heavily on projected text for the entirety of the piece - it’s not exactly accessible to those with visual impairment. While I’m developing the work, I’m keeping in mind ways in which to address this issue. An experiment involving prerecorded audio of the spoken text is in my near future.
SEALED
1. Audiobook: SPRINT: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp
2. Music: From the Spotify Peaceful Soft Morning Mix Playlist created for ilvs: I skyn by Prins Emanuel
3. Podcast: Chill Spanish Listening Podcast: #77 ‘Historias de terror’
4. Music: Rollin’ On by Jackie Venson
5. Podcast: The Marie Manuchehri Podcast: Sept 5, 2024
6. Podcast: Levar Burton Reads: “1000-Year-Old-Ghosts” by Laura Chow Reeve
7. Quiet. Just the sounds of the living room. My ears needed a break.
Is it possible to seal in the audio that was playing at the time the paintings were made?
I’ve listed here the tracks but hung them in a different order. See if you can tell what audio goes with what painting.
AN INVITATION
What do small rocks have to do with sound?* Nothing, really. I reference them in passing in the zine: ‘I could stare at a rock for solid 30 minutes, easy,’ I claim. This piece is an invitation for you to surrender everything and stare at a rock for an undisclosed amount of time. Pick one and gently flip the hour glass**. Feel free to hold the rock in your hand. Although they are arguably not as pretty when dry, please resist the urge to wet them.
If you find yourself waiting, here are some rock facts to pass the time until it’s your turn (compliments of various sources on the internet, none of which will be vetted, let alone cited):
- Rocks are Silicate-materials.
- They have a density of around 2200 kg/m^3.
- Sound travels through rock in the form of longitudinal, transverse and elastic waves.
- The speed of sound through solid rock is generally around 6,000 meters per second.
- The natural frequency of rock and soil is about 37 KHz.
* There’s a pun in there somewhere?
** There’s a certain tragic meta-beauty in using sand to track the time spent looking at a rock, no? Sand being the end result of the effect of time on rocks and all.
pages from EVERYTHING I HEARD OVER THE COURSE OF MY DAY
Watercolour and ink, paper, 18”x24”
Individual paintings of select pages of the zine are available for purchase.
$20-35
EVERYTHING WE HEARD
Guests were invited to write down/draw something they heard that day.