12 Months, Moons, and Sons

This collaborative synesthetic piece experienced its world debut at the Kav Kaz Festival in Derbent, Russia, in October 2021, under the curation of Masha Kroupnik. This work sought to bring alive the Biblical story of the 12 Sons of Israel, creating a multisensory symphony of sound, light, and colour for each brother/tribe. Visual pieces incorporate the colours, symbols, and imagery relating to the life or tribal role of each son, each element created as visual embodiment of the experience listening to that piece. The videos were then compiled and performed live during the festival.

I created and performed the live video projections. Music was composed by Uri Brener and conducted by Zarifa Abdulaeva. Featuring Sergei Nakaryakov (France) on the trumpet and cornet, Elias Faingersh (Sweden) on the trombone, live electronics, shofar, and the Makhachkala Philharmonic Orchestra. Narrative elements were composed by Elias Faingersh and Keren Klimovsky (Israel/Sweden). Additional lighting design by Imre Zsibrik (Sweden). View video footage from the Tribe of Levy, the Tribe of Issacher, and the 12 Tribes of Israel.

Mission to Nocterra

In 1977, NASA launched the Voyager space probe into the galaxy.
In 2018, we got something back.

Welcome to Nocterra, a microcosm of an alien planet where the visible light spectrum does not exist. Experts have identified that each wall in this recovered spacecraft was intended to teach us something about the Nocterran way of life, but after months of slow progress, the Winslow Corporation is crowd-sourcing the public’s help to unlock these mysteries.

Every fifteen minutes, a new crew of research specialists is invited onboard the craft. After a brief light readjustment experience to prepare their eyes for complete darkness, each researcher will have the opportunity to try to solve the puzzles and make meaning out of the materials on her wall using the senses of touch, smell, and sound. Will they help the world understand what the Nocterrans are trying to tell us?

This experiential installation meets puzzle room is designed to be experienced in complete darkness. The Mission to Nocterra experience was created in collaboration with Matt Gesualdi, Dan Griner, Bailey Van Etten, Mara Maxwell, and Brice Sullivan in partnership with the Colorado Center for the Blind and Maker Faire Denver with support from Meow Wolf.

Elements which I personally designed and built include: audio soundscape, Biospheres puzzle wall, 1-minute dynamic “light adjustment” experience on entry and exit to the structure. In addition, all collaborators assisted in the development of the overall concept and backstory and the “pre-theatre” experiences props, costumes, and performance.

Selected press coverage

“Try an escape room in total darkness at the Denver Maker Faire” in 303 Magazine, October 2018

“Walk through an alien world at this year’s Maker Faire Denver” in Nerd Alert News, October 2018

Undesignthinking

Our impact on this planet ever-expanding, and yet, our human psycho-sensory system co-evolved with the very natural energy and information landscapes we are perhaps irrevocably altering. If we are speeding up time and altering the meaning of geography, we need to refine our sensory abilities to match. We have the responsibility to seek alternative ways of perceiving, knowing, and making meaning of the ecologies in which we are enmeshed: to pause and wrap ourselves in the complexity that surrounds us before we cannot any longer.

The Institute of Non-human Centered Arts is a research project informed by intimacy with objects, organisms, systems, machines, and other non-human entities. It seeks to assemble both inventories of alternative ways of perceiving as well as tactics and strategies by which humans might more intimately engage with their non-human interlocuters. It is biased towards personal and local experience over widescale applications and endeavours to inculcate an expanded sensory sensitivity in which history, context, potential, curiosity, and propensities matter.

Visit undesignthinking.com or read the undesignthinking manifesto.

Breath vessels

Breath Vessels (2015) gives visible creative power to the life-sustaining ritual of breath. Breath is a rhythmic interface between our own bodies and our environment. Our life depends on breathing, and it is the site of the physical exchange that binds us to people, plants, and other organisms in the spaces and atmosphere we share. Our biological and emotional life is also often embodied in our breath: a gasp of surprise, an exasperated sigh, a frail rasp, the audible sound of sudden understanding. These too are cycles of exchange through which we communicate with the environment around us.
 
The project departed from a curiosity. If our exhalations were only visible, what stories about us would they tell? Is there a pattern language to breath that would reveal features of our emotional terrains if only we could see them? I wondered if our breathing expresses a common temporality, here transformed into shape, depending on whether we are anxious or sad, excited or at peace.

In Hebrew the word רוח can be translated as breath, wind, or spirit, as can the Hindu prana, Greek pneuma, Chinese qui, and Mayan ik. The English word spirit comes from the Latin spiritus (“breath”). Yet we rarely think about our own breathing unless it is endangered.

In this interactive installation, a virtual 3D model is generated in realtime as one exhales into a handheld shell-like form. The strength and speed of the breath in each moment determines how wide the vessel is. These forms are then 3D printed or translated into ceramic through slipcasting or clay 3D printing. Each vessel transforms the ephemeral breath into a persistent record of a moment otherwise already lost to time, an archive of exhalation.