Interactive sound artist Liz Phillips kicked off the Department of Music's colloquium on "Music, Culture, and Technology" yesterday afternoon in the Orwig Music Building.
Phillips told the crowd of her varied body of work, covering topics from the evolution of sound technology to the tonal preferences of Japanese coy fish.
Phillips, who has created interactive sound pieces for over 35 years, is in Providence for "Pixilerations," a digital arts showcase beginning today at 191 Westminster St. The showcase is a branch of FirstWorksProv, a large art festival running through October in downtown Providence.
For Pixilerations, Phillips will exhibit "Echo Locations." Originally commissioned by the Queens Museum of Art, the piece involves a large weather balloon over which Phillips projects video clips from her favorite New York City restaurants. Sounds recorded at the eateries emanate from metal bowls that Phillips wired to act as speakers and placed around the room.
As visitors enter the space, ultrasonic sensors detect them and change the projections of "Echo Locations." Different combinations of sounds and images play depending on the number of people in the room and the speed at which they walk.
"I've done a lot of pieces with food," said Phillips, who's known for using everyday objects like matzah and sea shells to project sound.
Phillips first became interested in interactive art while still in high school.
"I had a broken TV antennae and saw that the image on the television changed when you held it," she said. "I was interested in changing the object with your presence."
During her lecture, Phillips showed video footage of her past work. The first piece, titled "Sound Structures," was created in 1971 while Phillips was an undergraduate at Bennington College in Vermont. In it, student dancers weave through empty space, creating high and low tones as they move their bodies. By using several radio oscillators, Phillips had essentially turned an entire room into a musical instrument.
Her other works include "Sunspots," a metal and plastic coil that created different pitches as viewers walked toward it and "Graphite Grounds," which uses copper rocks to transmit sounds.
"I wanted a natural conductor," said Phillips of "Grounds." "And while in Japan setting up 'Sunspots,' I was inspired by their rock gardens."
Phillips' art has also incorporated water in innovative ways. In a 2003 piece called "Watertable," visitors' sounds created mesmerizing star patterns in an aluminum pool. For a water piece exhibited in Amsterdam, Phillips used the movements of coy fish to activate different tones.
"They liked the low frequency, so they kept producing these low sounds," she said of the fish.
As sound technology has evolved over the decades, Phillips has used each new development to further her art. "Echo Locations" is her most technologically sophisticated installation yet and uses a complex computer program to determine how to blend its sounds and images. Surrounded by bursts of laughter and the clanking of pots and pans, viewers are treated to an engrossing depiction of ethnic restaurants in New York City.
"People should come in and take their time," said Phillips of "Echo.""They'll discover sound mixes that I've never even heard just by moving."
