A performative installation featuring a performance by Ashleigh Semkiw

First exhibited and performed January 22, 2010 at Spoke Club, Toronto.

OVERVIEW:

"Visions of the Amen" is a performance sculpture consisting of strings dangling from wooden joists and weighed down by brass rods. Each one becomes animated in response to sound input. 

Each string in the arrangement is activated by a different audio frequency, and will spin with a velocity dependent on the volume of that particular pitch. As a string spins, it sweep out transparent, three dimensional wave pattern with a period and amplitude that changes according to its velocity, and pulls upwards on the rods. In these videos, singer Ashleigh Semkiw performs her arrangement of Bjork's Unison and Messaien's Poemes Pour Mi, creating two unique choreographies of 16 brass rods dancing, bobbing up and down in a forest of ghostly columns. A tenuous, ephemeral architectural space is created, and viewers are encouraged to walk through the rows of columns being animated by Ms. Semkiw's voice. Although the piece was designed with Ms. Semkiw's performance in mind, for the vast majority of the piece's exhibition lifespan, viewers may stand in the space of the project and activate it themselves by whistling, stamping their feet, or even trying their hand at the aria of their choice.