Going nowhere fast

Kinetic sound sculpture. 2016.
~50" x 50" x 50". 3 speaker cones, 1 dc motor, cable, wood, electronics.

Commissioned for the permanent collection of the Museum of Transitory Art (MoTA), Ljubljanam, Slovenia.

I travelled more on my 30th year than I ever had before. Throughout a year filled with "work travel", I flew a total of 35 flights which took me across Canada and the US, Europe, and as far as Japan. I spent 10 layovers in various airports. In the last 6 months of the year, I did not spend more than 3 weeks in a row at my home in Montreal. As flights and locations blur together, the feeling of movement becomes one of stasis. I travel from here to there, but I'm always in the same place.

"Going nowhere fast" transcribes each flight and layover I experienced between March 13, 2015 and March 13, 2016 into an algorithmic sound score. A local flight is represented with high tones, international flights with a mid-range tone, and trans-oceanic flights with a low tone; layovers are transcribed as a burst of noise.

As the generative melody meanders on, a small fan propels the mobile intermittently, twisting and turning the structure in this or that direction. Always in motion, going nowhere fast.

photos by Emily Gan