Out of Memory, for the SCI-Arc Gallery was an experience at the convergence of sound, material, light, form and technology.  The installation was accompanied by a site-specific composition by world-renowned composer Ken Ueno. The sound-scape was integral to the experience and used to explore the spatialization of sound within the physical boundaries of the gallery.

Memory was used as a vehicle to inform the work. The familiar was the impetus from which the project originated. Unlike most of our work that is buried in practical issues aligned with the realization of producing a building, the installation was an opportunity to construct an experience imbued with symbolism and meaning. The normal negotiations present in a building project were absent. Out of Memory was unabashedly self invented, in pursuit of an answer without a real question.

The installation proposed a new structural materiality through the use of renewable polyurethane foam. The foam was used as a total building assembly: structure, envelope and acoustical barrier. Fabric lined formwork was temporarily constructed on site and removed once the sprayed on liquid structure set. Layers of closed cell foam (used structurally) and open cell foam (used acoustically) were combined to make up the wall assembly. The pure geometry of the parabola provided a natural self-structural form. The installation also served as a prototype for “Sprayed On House”, a project now in development.

The musical composition was integral to the experience and provided an ever-changing mobile performed with custom software designed specifically for the installation.  Resonance was exploited within the acoustically absorptive space. Each layer of sound related to an existing environmental sound present within the existing building and reenacted a memory of that sound. A low hum was derived from a recorded sample, a mechanical, granular sound, was also inspired by an existing condition, but re-imagined. These two examples served as counterpoints that represented the literal and poetic modes of memory, akin to the relationship between a photograph and a painting. Through experiencing the aestheticized memory of the environmental sounds, one’s relationship with the sound was transformed.

The interior surface of the parabolic structure was a three dimensional representation of the musical composition. Realized through on site, six-axis robotic milling, the sonic contours were derived from the sound contained within. A spectrogram of the composition served as a source from which a mapping of frequency was translated into points and vectors. This provided a framework for the digitally modeled three-dimensional surface. The data was then used to robotically carve the interior surface of the volume.

Experientially, difference was investigated through a series of counterpoints found in the contrasting chambers .The spiraling geometry and acoustically absorptive material magnified the spatial and the aural. Notions of memory were confronted. Traces of the ambient combined with visions of the past, present and future as one’s awareness was heightened and perceptions altered.

In the end, the piece transcended the personal pursuit from which it originated. The conclusion was not the conclusion. The act of making was the conclusion and it was the memory of that act that was eclipsed within the residual. The remnant remained, in the gallery, as evidence of the pursuit.