Het GlazenHuis
http://www.hetglazenhuis.be
Lommel, Belgium
When I was invited to participate in the exhibition Whereabouts curated by Hyperopia Projects, I was simultaneously asked to participate in an artist residency to make a work on site and to use the facilities within the glass museum, which is equipped with a hot shop and cold shop for working with glass.
The Tactile Transducers (2016) is the name of a series of works that ask the fanciful question, “What if a glass object could be a vessel onto which is transcribed its history? What if information was locked within matter for future transmission?” A transducer is a device that translates one form of energy into another. A speaker, for example, is a transducer that converts electrical impulses into auditory waves; a microphone, conversely, transforms auditory waves into electrical signals. The artwork, which is part installation part performance, suggests the capacity of things to transmit information like memories, sounds and physical impressions – to act as a record.
In the version of The Tactile Transducers staged at the glass museum GlazenHuis in Lommel Belgium, I worked with glass artist Eric Pipien from Ghent and drummer Davy Deckmijin from Lommel. The glass objects played in the performance were crafted in response to an interview with Deckmijin. They embodied his descriptions of the physicality of drumming and of lasting sonic and visual impressions from his hometown. His extended glass percussion solo in the museum’s iconic tower reduced the delicate shapes to rubble. Afterwards, the fragments remained on exhibition, accompanied by the sound of the performance fed back through the tower’s double-helix spiral staircase.
Preparatory drawings and sketches
My hot shop team
Objects
The performance and the installation
