project description
IN[ ]EX (2006)
M. Simon Levin / Laurie Long / Kate Armstrong / Jean Routhier / Leonard
Paul / Bobbi Kozinuk / Manuel Pîna / Alice Ming Wai Jim
In the project IN[ ]EX , this collaborative team examined
the notion of container culture. In conjunction with the World Urban Forum
(Vancouver, BC) and the International Electronic Arts Symposium,
Container Culture Exhibition (San José, CA.), we transformed a 40’ and 20’
(respectively) shipping container into distributed audio sculptures. Over five
thousand small wooden blocks were handcrafted from a selectively logged
tree. They were then embedded with technology, and distributed through
multiple channels and places to a ‘public’ whose interactions and
engagement with these blocks transformed the audio rhythms,
composition, content and spatialization of the sound-scape within the
container. This expansive work explored the migration of capital, goods,
and people through the ports and public spaces of Vancouver and San
José. By using thousands of small wooden blocks as placeholders of this
activity, the project brought forward a consideration, not only of the social
conditions of movement in the two cities, but also the ways in which the
circulation of these ‘things’ implicate us in the global economy and inform
our diverse world-views.