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"Sound Wall" was an installation using handmade paper walls embedded with sound recordings of cells dividing. The work was designed for the Artist in Residence Program at CAMAC the Center for Art and Technology in Marney sur Seine, a program for international artists housed in a 17th century priory.
This work made direct reference to the monastery cell and biological cell division. The eight-foot sheets of handmade paper were used to cast the walls and formed into the cubical space inside the room. The work was lit from the inside, making a lantern- like effect and dramatic shadows of the viewers project onto the walls.
The recordings are healthy cells to damaged cells in the process of dividing. The cell recordings were made by Andrew Pelling, a Bio Physicist, using the atomic force microscope (AFM) which has a very fine tip to feel the actual cell in the same way a needle was used to feel the pattern of vibrations pressed into vinyl records. Pelling has found that cells with cancer or other diseases give off very low and strained frequencies while healthy cells give a more even sound. Sonocytology may prove to be a noninvasive aid in detecting disease. Pelling has given me the permission to use his recording for this work.
Viewers encountering this work were asked to step inside the space and listen to the sounds of the cells from the thirty tiny speakers embedded in the walls.
The photographs and video were produced with my fellow artists in residence at CAMAC the summer of 2008.
Special Thanks
Andrew E. Pelling, Assistant Professor of Bio Physics, Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, for his sound recording of the cells.
Dominic Redferm, Senior Lecturer of Media Arts at RMIT, for shooting and editing the video.
Siobhan Murphy, Choreographer, University of Victoria, and Greg Miller, Professor of English and Poet, Millsap College for their choreography, singing and performance.
This project was funded by the Mellon Foundation for Faculty Research and Development, he Stillman-Drake Fund, Reed College, CAMAC, and the Tenot Foundation