MANUAL EARDRUMS
a sound installation by Judy Dunaway
a sound installation by Judy Dunaway
MANUAL EARDRUMS is about seeing sound with your hands via holding an inflated balloon. In this sound installation, listening with the ears is not the intention, but rather surfing the sound waves by feeling them as they mutate, shift and change through the space. The gallery is stripped bare of visual material, save for the bodies moving freely through the space as they explore the ever changing acoustic patterns.
Since the 1990s, Judy Dunaway’s art practice has centered primarily around the latex balloon as a sound conduit combined with an inherent visual and sculptural aspect. A daughter of feminist art of the 60s and 70s, her ephemeral medium connects to the body by direct contact. Balloons are malleable, touchable, they hold the breath and the substance itself is like a skin. Twenty years ago, after completing two years of experimental composition studies with Alvin Lucier, Dunaway created the sound installation Manual Eardrums in response to Lucier's minimalist obliteration of personal experience in his iconic work "I am sitting in a room.” Manual Eardrums extends his ideas back into the realm of a physical and intimate reality.
According to Newton's second law of motion, F = MA, to move an object requires a force; the heavier the object is, the larger the force required. In order for air to push an object, that object must be light. Thus the balloon, which is lightweight, can be pushed easily by sound vibrations. This is the same concept employed by the human eardrum. Thus carrying a balloon could be compared to carrying a large eardrum.
This work was premiered at Galerie Rachel Haferkamp, Koeln, Germany, January 2003. American Premiere: Diapason (NYC) November 2003. Subsequently it has been exhibited at numerous locations, including Wesleyan University, CUBA (Muenster), ohrenhoch sound gallery (Berlin) and Audio Art Festival (Krakow). Upcoming presentation: March 7th and 8th, 2020, noon-6pm, ChaShaMa gallery, 21 Greenwich Avenue, New York, NY (sponsored by the Ensemble Ipse Siteworks Series).
Since the 1990s, Judy Dunaway’s art practice has centered primarily around the latex balloon as a sound conduit combined with an inherent visual and sculptural aspect. A daughter of feminist art of the 60s and 70s, her ephemeral medium connects to the body by direct contact. Balloons are malleable, touchable, they hold the breath and the substance itself is like a skin. Twenty years ago, after completing two years of experimental composition studies with Alvin Lucier, Dunaway created the sound installation Manual Eardrums in response to Lucier's minimalist obliteration of personal experience in his iconic work "I am sitting in a room.” Manual Eardrums extends his ideas back into the realm of a physical and intimate reality.
According to Newton's second law of motion, F = MA, to move an object requires a force; the heavier the object is, the larger the force required. In order for air to push an object, that object must be light. Thus the balloon, which is lightweight, can be pushed easily by sound vibrations. This is the same concept employed by the human eardrum. Thus carrying a balloon could be compared to carrying a large eardrum.
This work was premiered at Galerie Rachel Haferkamp, Koeln, Germany, January 2003. American Premiere: Diapason (NYC) November 2003. Subsequently it has been exhibited at numerous locations, including Wesleyan University, CUBA (Muenster), ohrenhoch sound gallery (Berlin) and Audio Art Festival (Krakow). Upcoming presentation: March 7th and 8th, 2020, noon-6pm, ChaShaMa gallery, 21 Greenwich Avenue, New York, NY (sponsored by the Ensemble Ipse Siteworks Series).