We just completed the texture track for the Be Quiet Eyes remix for Haglet Alter. For now we’re whispering in the infrasonic space.
re-thinking visual
laetitia boulud | alex de jong
angels resurrect the listening post
Eventually, the Force 10 gale Force 9 gale that hit Ameland lifted the listening post from its pole holes and put it down gently, and in one piece, in the field. Yesterday afternoon, five angels put it back where it belongs.
peripheral fear
We’re in the process of preparing a new installation that is based on atavistic sensory perception. We use subsonic sound and manipulate the peripheral visual field to create an experience of fear and the supernatural. Warning if you listen to the video: be careful if you use headphones, and don’t attempt playback over common subwoofers
be quiet eyes showing at KM10
rethinking visual’s installation “be quiet eyes” will be showing during Art Month Ameland, on the Dutch island of Ameland at “Dit Eiland“, the gallery of cross-media artist Timo Mank (Archipel Media Lab). “be quiet eyes” exists in the real world in the field behind the gallery, where it is the complement to the remains of a round silo. Here, rethinking visual have built a listening post, a shelter, containing an extract of the sounds of the field that were recorded during a month long period. This sound mapping had its basis in Second Life, where it was designed, and its virtual model in Second Life is shown in Museum Sorgdrager Huis as the second installation to this piece.
In its construction, the listening post refers to the surrounding landscape and the old dike on which it stands, being built from willow saplings that are harvested from the land itself.The felt is likewise a natural material used in the building of mongolian yurts.The effect is one of insulation and protection, a shelter where sight is switched off and sound becomes the dominant sensory stimulus.
picnicking
observatorium
For about a year, Timo Mank and I have been talking of doing something on his land on Ameland and coupling that with his SL Ameland SIM. He couples real life and Second Life experiences with elegance and ease and besides that is the curator of his own gallery and hotelier to boot. For this year’s Picnic and in cooperation with LindenLab he is producing a number of picnics on his land that will result in a soundscape that will be created and recorded on his land and played in his SIM in SL. At last I’ll have a chance to measure his “Observatorium” in sound, because we’re creating the sound piece for use at the pre-Picnic.
in the dark
We’ve been having requests for interviews and filming the installation, or we’ve been asked to send “pictures of it” to people. Alas, when we say the space is dark, we really mean it. It isn’t a “darkened” space, or a room with most of the lights out. Our darkspace is entirely without light. This is in contrast to the dome, our light hole, but even there, you’ll see remembrances of images, their shadow and reflection, not the full sharpness we are so accustomed to in daily life.
press release: Longing For Sight at MAMCO/BAC
“re-thinking visual”, the studio of photographers Laetitia Boulud and Alex de Jong presents the installation “longing for sight” at Mapping Festival in Geneva from 6 – 16 May, 2010. The installation consists of a dark space filled with voices, and a dome where visitors are immersed in a visual/aural landscape that is projected as if in a planetarium. That structure, entered after a plunge in total darkness reveals a confined, secret space, flooded with reflected light. Â Boulud and De Jong are photographers by training and by instinct, but their process has led them to abandoning the visual towards touch and towards sound. To them, seeing becomes sensing by means of all the senses.
Longing For Sight launched at MappingFestival2010
After a week of extremely hard graft, long days and mounting tension our installation, Longing For Sight, is live at MappingFestival 2010 in Geneva. It will be in place and open to be experienced until the 17th of May. The location is BAC, at MAMCO. We want to thank the entire Mapping crew, but especially  Fanny Devouassoux and her technicians for assisting us to make this a reality. It was amazing to have so many people come to experience it already on opening night, and to witness people in the dark space and in the dome. Incientally, we are part of the round table discussion on May 13th, so if you are in Geneva, stop by and say hello to us. Meanwhile, we have some video material for you. Granted that we keep the place very dark, it is however possible to get an impression of what goes on inside.