DELAY
Sonification and Speakers: Florian Grond
Dimensions Variable.
Central Element: 16’ (adjustable) x 2’ x 2’; 5 speakers: 1’x1’x3” each + spotlight
Motors, aluminum, oil on wood, microprocessors, circuitry, foam core, transducers
2014/2015 (remounting/circuitry redesigned to be floor mounted)

Delay considers the notion of “delay” to demonstrate how paintings stimulate at least three senses: most overtly, the visual and more covertly and, perhaps, more indelibly, the aural and tactile.

Delay is a spare installation about impossible love. It is meant to be a lure: to be seen, heard (thanks to my collaborator Florian Grond) and experienced; to delay people, as love does – which, in this case, stems from my love of painting and the goal to take it from its 20th century’s expansion into space (with three dimensional paintings) into the realm of time with sound.

Various ways of understanding paintings as artifacts exist (e.g. through formal, historical and iconological analysis). All these contribute to privileging the eye over the ear and the, arguably, diminishing sense of touch. In other words, all these view painting as a direct, visual experience as opposed to something that unfolds over time, for which the ear is better suited.

Delay, however, treats painting as an embodiment of process – that it is a frozen record of time. The arrangement of colors and shapes, the enjoyment of visually surfing along a painting’s surface incidents and not being able to touch them, instantaneously creates desire. And that desire doesn’t stop there. It is compounded by a similar tickling of the ear, the sense that complements the eye in our experience of time and space. In this way, painting stimulates three senses: most overtly, the visual; more covertly and, perhaps, more indelibly, the aural and tactile. And it is this tease—this suggestion and refusal to be explicit—that captivates its viewers: A painting alerts multiple senses, and we are delayed.

Note: Delay is a collaboration with Florian Grond who contributed his knowledge, and remarkable insight, and the sound, speakers and audification for the piece. Delay also purposely references Marcel Duchamp’s interest in visuals and sound and The Large Glass, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors even, which he originally titled Delay and which also dealt with impossible love.

For a full explanation, see <Downloadable PDF> documentation.