Interval
(2005 – ongoing)
Representatives of every age between 10 and 60 are asked to repeat their age at the rhythm they choose for the equivalent of their age in minutes (eg. a 38-year old person repeats 38 for 38 minutes).
Participants so far: Emanuel Garon (10), Lucy Dykhuis (13), Ashley Wong (20), Jaime Angelopoulos (23), Clea Haugo (25), Félix Philantrope (27), Erika Keirulf (29), Tetsuomi Anzai (30), Diane Borsato (31), Dominique Fontaine (34), Kenneth Doren (38), Robert Bean (50), Glynis Humphrey (57), James MacSwain (60).
VIDEO INSTALLATION
The single-screen version shows each participant in order of increasing age. The image of each participant fades from almost black to almost white. The audio for the video is a variation of the sound used in the audio installation. Duration of single-screen version with 14 ages: 447 minutes. Image stills of the beginning and end points included here. First shown as a solo exhibit at MEDIA+SPACE, Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, curated by Baruch Gottlieb
AUDIO INSTALLATION VERSIONS
For the audio component, each amp plays back one participant, and each repetition has been replaced by complete silence except every nth repetition where n equals the age (eg. for the 10-year old we hear him saying 10 only every 10th time he repeats it). The complete silence alternates with the ambient silence between each repetition making audible the rhythm of each person’s repetitive delivery.
Installation (14 ages) exhibited at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery, Concordia University, Montréal, as part of CUT (with Jocelyn Robert and Raymond Gervais), curated by Michèle Thériault, October 19 – November 25, 2006.
Installation (8 ages) exhibited in the Summer of 2005 at the Anna Leonowens Gallery, NSCADU, Halifax, Nova Scotia, as part of Sound Bytes, curated by Robert Bean and Peter Dykhuis.
DRAWINGS
In the drawings each pencil stroke represents each repetition. At the bottom of each drawing there is a phrase stating the name, age number of repetition and date of recording. Images here.
Every creature is a specific rhythm.
(St. Augustine)
Interval sounds the space between moments, times, spaces, lives. It poses oddly phrased questions: How many times old are you? How divided is your time? How old is your rhythm? How does your age rhythm space? Interval depicts the space in between us, as a rhythm, as a timeline, a pastime, a divided place. The numbers punctuate the space, they constantly reiterate the person’s presence in the here and now, a sort of counting in place. At a standstill, not 1,2,3, … but x, x, x, …. What interests me here is how each participant, given this mundane task, adopts a unique rhythm —some are constant, others erratic; some have a rapid-fire anxious delivery, others have a slow and relaxed output. Each person’s presence permeates the repetitive act, they temporarily become the number—hence the peculiar phrasing of the epigraph: “Every creature is a specific rhythm”. Augustine viewed the alternation of sound and silence in music as a manifestation of the alternation of nonbeing and coming into being.
