Another Side of In

Another Side of In is an interactive, experiential, installation involving sound, light and movement. The project is a collaboration between visual artist, Marjorie Minkin and her musician son, Mike Gordon.

In response to 20 customized looped sounds extracted by Gordon from his album Inside In, Minkin created 20 Lexan painted relief sculptures resembling abstract human torsos. Each sculpture has a mounting system that accommodates a hidden speaker, sound source and proximity sensor. Sounds used by Mike Gordon on his Inside In CD have been extracted and "looped" into discrete sonic elements that visitors trigger by their movements. At a variably adjustable distance from each sculpture, the sound loop associated with it begins. The sound's volume rises or falls as one gets closer or moves away from a piece within its active zone.

A first version of this installation was presented at the Firehouse Gallery in Burlington, VT in 2006. At the opening reception of the 6 week exhibition, a dancer of Japanese Butoh movement demonstrated the interactivity of the project.

With the addition of advanced innovative electronics by new collaborator Jamie Robertson, electronics engineer and musician, this exciting new version (Another Side Of In V.2) is an expansion of the original project offering an even more interactive and engaging experience for the viewer. The exhibit uses custom designed embedded processing technology in each sculpture to interact with viewers in novel ways. Each piece has the ability to internally generate and alter sounds based on viewer proximity, and to communicate wirelessly to all the other pieces in the exhibit. In addition, the information about viewer positions is used to dynamically alter lighting, both on the individual pieces as well as in the entire space. The end result is an experience that is interactive, non-repetitive and driven by the participation of all the people in the space.

ARTISTS' STATEMENTS

"Mike and I have long planned a collaboration of his music and my visual art that would involve viewers in a multi-media experience. Mike, who has always been fascinated with innovative technology, envisioned developing an interactive art installation utilizing proximity sensors. The release of Mike’s album "Inside In" was the catalyst for us to begin our joint creation. Working on my art while listening to Mike’s custom designed sounds extracted from his album was inspirational and challenging for me. Responding to the "colors" and "textures" of Mike’s sounds, I created a group of painted molded Lexan relief works resembling abstract torsos. For the full expression of this project, the audience’s participation is needed."

"It's a collaboration-meant-to-be, since my artistry has always been inspired by my mother's. We have experimented in the past with bass lines written to accompany the rippley surface of translucent relief works. And she has done backdrops for my band. But my Inside In album is now lending the perfect setting for a more in-depth juxtaposition. So many of the installations that I've seen that claim to be "interactive," often with rave reviews, seem to be hardly that. They offer no clear correlation between art and observer. We would like, with this show, to provide a more stimulating example of viewer participation, while providing a forum for our sounds and visual art to mesh more symbiotically then ever."

"Helping Marjorie and Mike realize their vision through the use of current embedded technology is a great example of what I’m all about. Having spent much of my career working with creative artists, I appreciate that technology should serve a clear purpose. It should not be the driving function, but rather a means to an end. Another Side of In is a case where the vision came first, and the appropriate technology was developed to support the vision, as it should be."