MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies Presents:
Waves and Signs, a conference and workshop on low-frequency vibration with a performance and dance party.
A project by Wendy Jacob with students and faculty from MIT and Gallaudet University, school for the deaf.
April 24 and 25, 2009
CAVS, 265 Massachusetts Avenue, N52-390, Cambridge, MA 02139
Contact: Meg Rotzel 617.253.4415
Acting as a silent speaker, a raised floor at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies will be activated to insert low-frequency vibrations into the space of architecture. The floor will be used alternately as a platform, instrument, and stage for an event in
three parts.
In the first part, the floor will be used as a platform on which to hold a dialog (in speech and sign) between artists, designers, scientists and students. In the second part, the floor will be used as an instrument in a workshop on resonant vibrations. In the third part, the floor will become a stage for performances and a silent dance party. This project is part of an investigation of the politics of experience.
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Signers and Speakers, Friday, April 24, 10 – 12, 2 – 5PM
Moderated by Wendy Jacob, artist/CAVS fellow
A dialog (in speech and sign) between artists, designers, scientists, students, speakers, and signers. Participants will touch on the range of human experience including deafness, and on acoustical engineering, especially resonance and sonic vibrations. All presentations will be interpreted in American Sign Language.
Presenters include :
Charlotte M. Reed, Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT, Understanding Speech through the Skin: An Overview of Research on Natural and Artificial Methods of Tactual Communication
Sheila Patek, Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley,
Rumbling shrimp and rasping lobsters: vibration in the sea
Kelly Dobson, artist, Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT, Resonating with Machines
Hansel Bauman, architect, Gallaudet University, Deaf Architecture: The Resonance of Place and the Senses
Michael Chorost, writer, From Bionic Ears to Bionic Brains: My Collision with Neurotechnology
A full listing is available here
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Resonance Workshop, Saturday, April 25, 10 - 12:00, 2 - 5:00, CAVS
Led by Jackie Lee, PhD candidate, Media Arts and Sciences, MIT
In a one-day workshop participants will work in pairs – one hearing and one deaf - to create acoustic experiments as a form of communication. Each participant will use physical objects, computational tools, sensors and actuators to invite another’s resonance. The resulting compositions will be performed publicly on Saturday evening. The workshop is limited to ten participants.
To enroll, contact Meg Rotzel at CAVS. mrotzel@MIT.EDU
Jackie Lee makes digitally augmented objects designed to reinforce social relationships, including a personal shy robot and a toolkit for externalizing internal states. Lee is a PhD candidate in Media Arts and Sciences in the Affective Computing Group, Media Lab, MIT.
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Performance and Dance Party, Saturday, April 25, 8 – 10PM
A floor will be activated with low-frequency vibrations. By sitting, standing, dancing on the floor, visitors will be able to experience sound through their bodies. The floor will be used as a site for performances, produced in the workshop, and for a dance party.
Performers include:
DJ Pandai’a, of BASSIC
Jessica Rylan, Center for Advanced
Visual Studies, MIT
Andrew Colwell, throat-singer
Eric Gunther, electronic musician
With sound by:
Damion Romero, Nikolas Francis,
and participants of Resonance Workshop
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Wendy Jacob is an artist who makes sculptures and site-based installations that explore the interface between architecture and bodily experience. Jacob’s work includes breathing walls and ceilings, warm rosettes, hugging chairs, and tightropes through living rooms. She is also a member of the collaborative group
Haha. She is a Visual Arts Program lecturer and Research Affiliate at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies.
Participants in the project include students and faculty from MIT’s departments of architecture, physics, media arts and sciences; with students and faculty from Gallaudet University. Gallaudet University, Washington D.C., is the world's only university in which all programs and services are specifically designed to accommodate deaf and hard of hearing students.
Special thanks to: MIT Council for the Arts, Office of the Chancellor, MIT, Frederick Kim, Jack Murphy, Jessica Rylan, Ted Moallem, Bilal Ghalib, Ian Smith, Meg Rotzel, Joe Zane, Kamila Madry, Lisa Hickler, Ed Halligan, Jackie Lee, Matthew Mazzotta, Faith Rogers, Jessica Wheelock, Jin Won Jung, Hansel Bauman, Robert Sirvage
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