 |
 |
In Barely Audible Frequencies no. 1 & 2, two frequencies at the limits of aural sensitivity were played at very high volume through several speakers concealed in the ceiling cavity of None Gallery, a studio and project space in Dunedin, New Zealand. As a result of their extreme pitch, the presence of the 'sounds' employed in this installation was most readily apparent upon their removal, which coincided with the viewer's departing the exhibition space.
At a conceptual level, this work functioned in relation to two central lineages, firstly to minimal sculpture, where works often considered viewers' experiences of spatial navigation, and secondly to audiology, the branch of science concerned with the study of the mechanisms and limitations of human hearing. It is in relation to the first of these genealogies that we should consider how the volume of the tones in the space, though they weren't properly audible, gave rise to a subtle, unsettling sensation. In filling the space, the 'sounds' gave it a unique, ineffable quality which dissipated upon exit, functioning as a demarkation, and emphasising the transition into and out of the gallery.
With respect to audiology, my intention was to question the line of hearing – when is something heard, what is required for the claim that it has been to be made, and what about the frequencies of 'sound' which we cannot hear? To regard the sensation derived from the 'sounds' played in the space as one stemming from hearing – i.e. experienced via the aural faculties – is slippery for the frequencies selected existed on the very threshold of what the mechanisms of hearing are sensitive to. The question then becomes; if not as a result of hearing, how can the presence of a sensation derived from vibration in the world be understood?