Video

Echoing Narcissus

1987

TAPECODE 10261

An interactive sound-sculpture in the form of a well, covered in copper sheet and printed circuit boards. It is a retelling of Ovid's myth of Narcissus and Echo. All sounds made in the proximity of the sculpture are lowered in frequency and played through a speaker at the bottom of the well. A reflective sheet of plastic stretched over the speaker creates a distorting mirror representing water at the bottom of the well. The treated sound is picked up by the microphone providing a delayed feedback which causes all sounds to cascade toward the sub-audible range. Creating a sort of acoustic gravity which draws the spectator towards the well to be confronted with his or her own image, distorted at the bottom of the well. This work is a sort of black hole of communication into which the observer loses himself in the infinite restructurings of voice and image.

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