Of stars and stones between peaks and ground, there are spaces in which we can imagine beyond the walls of confine. Retracing our paths and remediating our willingness to exist in deeper relation. The shape of nurturing in real time. Crafted through sensory sensitivity, this piece is part of a larger creation. The contributions are artistic, somatic, simple and theoretical, becoming a medium to explore radical care, queer interdependence, porous binarities, and tidal grief. By reappropriating the act of writing, we aim to recentre ourselves, holding space to recover (enough) in hopes to retrieve what was sure to be lost. Forever.
few and far moons is an exhibition of a body of work by faye mullen within which this circular censored sound piece …and you take care was installed. This iteration of the sound installation was presented at the Chaufferie for the Hexagram Gala in September 2024.
Approach
Seven speakers encircled facing one another, minimally and yet boldly imbue the gallery space with presence. Standing tall, the speakers hold almost a sense of personification through their posture and veining cables coiling throughout the space.
Each speaker is individually activated through censored detection of a visitor who approaches the edge of circumference from within the circle. Proximity activates the mono audio file which is amplified from one of the speakers carrying the acapella voice of a dear queer kin. Activated and potentially subsequently looped, the voice(s) chant(s) a hypnotic and repetitive simple song. Inspired by a decade long personal and internal echolalia, this amplified voicing fills the space.
…and you take care installed at la chaufferie du Cœur des Sciences, UQAM
From movement to stillness, the composition is interactive, in situ and in real time. The voices sing, chant, belt, call and hum the tune in their personal way while in concert with one another though not necessarily always in tune or rhythm. A cyclical sonic voicing calling us to practices of recognizing, remembering, returning and reckoning.
Framework
The hymnal voices orchestrate themselves into a new composition each time thanks to audience interaction and movement detected by sensors inspiring a sense of agentivity, amplification and non-interference. The cadential melody “and you take care…” coupled with instrumentalization will be looped and superimposed in the space inviting the spectator to bask in a certain practice of collective care.
Inviting a form of bodily autonomy with the composition engages the participant in a self-determined way, increasing opportunities for self-soothing, collective care and sensory euphoria. The experience and practice of care refers to a polysemic connotation that adopts the position of both subject and object in the context of this piece.
Sonic experience at the installation, chaufferie du coeur des sciences, UQAM
Feelings forward, sacred rage, and grief work, yes – are expressed sensorially through the impressions and intentions of this work, which activates a neuroqueer approach to the practices of care, circular communion and vision of the future(s). In the spirit of a spider’s web – a subtle act of resistance in the hope of making connection.
Process
For some decade, this echolalia calibrated and recalibrated a nervous system through an internal sonic hum. In the wake of directional violence erupting over human rights, bodily autonomy and sovereignty, the volume extended across relations. It was not until queer kin was entrusted with the melody, that it was heard audibly. It was birthed sonically through a collaborative engagement of collective nurturing and reciprocity.
Detail of the installation device
Meeting kin where they were at, most recordings were of field and in the comfort of homes, studios – over meals, beneath tables and under blankets. Each recording is constituted of a world attuned to the frequency of life affirmation. The recordings are each imbued with relationship and each person was asked through kinship and acknowledgement of their profound connection to sound and their auditory sense.
Collaboration is a precious and precarious space of creation. In consideration of collaboration, receptivity is vital to collective nourishment. Reciprocity is essential to the expansiveness of making being the birthplace of this circle.
Detail of the installation
Technical means
This synergistic sound system consists of seven speakers, each paired with an ultrasonic sensor, soundboard and microcontroller. A custom code written in MicroPython is used to control the Raspberry Pi Pico H. The software reads the input from the ultrasonic sensors and communicates with the soundboard to play audio based on the participant’s proximity. When a participant approaches a speaker stand, the MaxBotix ultrasonic sensor, installed upon it, is triggered and thus the assigned track for that speaker begins to play from the Raspberry Pi Pico drive.
Manual assembling of the device
While the participant remains within the sensor’s set detection range, the track will loop continuously. Once the participant moves away, the track will continue to play only until it reaches the end, at which point the speaker stops playing. The sound will only be re-triggered when a participant enters the sensor’s range anew. Each speaker plays a unique track, but all speakers operate in the same manner. The composition is interactive, in situ and in real time given that the seven distinctive tracks play either solo, in duet, quartet, etc. or in concert according to the movement, placement and presence of the participant(s).
As the sensors are installed in circle facing one another, proximity is relative to the circumference – as the participant distances from one speaker within the circumference, they are possibly approaching the detection range of a speaker adjacent and so on. The precise center of the circle is just slightly defined out of the detection range of all seven speakers granting the possibility of silence and/or resonance. Possibility of presence, power and play are endless and the sonic soothing teeters toward overload depending on the activation.
Technical process, building the device
https://vimeo.com/1060605992?share=copy
Compelled by sensitivity, faye mullen commits to a practice of observation and listening as an artist + community worker.
Their offerings intend toward horizontality, worlding queer conceptions, divergent formations and grounded relations. Sculpturally inclined, their work translates as sound installations, site specific interventions, performative embodiments, earthworks or images both moving and still.
Acclimatized to the circumstance of living out our humanness, faye tends to grief work, yes. Devoted to reframing silence and interested in time bending potential, their practice efforts to hold simultaneously the power of undoing and the practice of restoration.
Gratitude
The artist wishes to thank their research director Mario Côté who has offered unwavering support over the years.
Thank you to Monia Abdallah, Louis Jacob and Suzanne Paquet, Viviane Delisle. Thank you to the 2016 cohort of DEPA.
Thank you to Hexagram and the crew including Max Boutin, Fanny Latreille-Beaumont, Paloma Leyton, Jason Pomrenski for believing in this unfolding.
Heartfelt and spirited thank you to Alexandra Gelis and Lorena Salomé for their technical consultation and generosity of spirit. Pace of care.
Deep most grounded gratitude to my close queer kin who entrusted me with their voices : Caro, Eli, Grumps, Saria, Steak, Taǫmęˀšreˀ, Teniesha, Zanette. Yours, I hold with care while for mine, I search.
Thank you to my Mom for holding me in my practice of voicing since, Fovever.
Thank you to family, blood and chosen.
Thank you to Jona who has accompanied the growth, from seed of this work – even when I was over showering or over shadowing, you saw me through the making.
Thank you all for your encouragement and genuine connection founded in reciprocity.
Grateful to the collective efforts coming through me from elsewhere. In spirit, creative work is as ever, always, already collaborative.
