Floris Vanhoof – Fluid Computer & Talking Gongs (7/11/2018 – 1/12/2018)

floris poster

We are pleased to celebrate the opening of first the exhibition of Floris Vanhoof’s work in Aotearoa.

Floris’ work combines homemade musical circuits with abandoned projection technologies. Manifesting as audiovisual installations, expanded cinema performances and music releases, Vanhoof’s work involves the translation of media forms from medium to medium in order to explore how perception operates and the ways in which new perspectives can appear.

 

In his multi-media work, Fluid Computer, a rotating loudspeaker acts as a cybernetic monolith, projecting digitally filtered noise.

“This installation uses the digital noise, such as the computer code that flows through our internet cables, as raw material. By filtering these information pulses and feeding them back to the input the sound is coloured and we seem to recognize a pattern in the noise. What normally happens behind the scenes of our computer is scattered here in space by the rotating Leslie loudspeaker.”

The title of this work is inspired by a passage from the book ‘The Pattern on the Stone’ by inventor W. Daniel Hillis. The word ‘computer’ usually refers to an electronic digital device.

“In The Pattern on the Stone, I learned about the existence of computers in which water flows instead of electrons. This ‘liquid computer’ serves as a source of inspiration for deconstructing the ubiquitous algorithmic machine, and for new technologies to be revived through untracked sidetracks.”

 

In Talking Gongs, two resonating gongs hang in two cubical frames functioning like loudspeaker membranes, translating pre-recorded vibrations into sound. These waves originate in small electronic circuits before being translated outwards by the large physical objects. As the signal alternates between both gongs, the disk shapes seem to communicate with each other.

“With this installation, I found a way to translate the electronic sounds that I play on homemade musical circuits to a gallery/ installation context. The vibrations make reverb while travelling through the shiny metal alloy of the gongs, which enhances our spatial sense of the two-dimensional disks floating in the cubes.”

 

Opens – Wednesday 7 November, 5.30pm (w. refreshments from Liberty Breweries)
Hours – Tuesday – Saturday, 12.00pm – 4.00pm.
Closes – Saturday 1 December, 4.00pm