The act of reading conjures the act of listening by evoking sound. Thirty-eight speaker box forms arranged along the wall in a horizontal sequence draw the viewer/listener close in anticipation of hearing actual sound emissions. As the listener strains to hear imagined sound, the listener becomes transformed into viewer. Fine text, hand-embroidered in dark thread, emerges from the surface of thick, dark, sound-dampening felt. The absorption of the letters into the felt surface conveys the relationship of sound to felt. The vibrations produced by sound are readily absorbed by the structural capacity of felt in terms of its potent absorption and saturation characteristics. The text consists of thirty-eight onomatopoeic words (e.g. “whoosh whrrr”) that, if read aloud, emulate sounds produced by mechanical devices. The potential voice transmissions create a sound composition; consequently, it is the biological body that generates mechanical noises. The viewer then becomes the source for actual sound as, moving and reading across the thirty-eight rhythmically-sequenced words, an irresistible action occurs: vocalization.

Curated for solo exhibition at La Centrale/Galerie Powerhouse, Montreal.