Field Study is an experimental light and sound installation by Chromasonic composed of repeated translucent scrims laid out to create a series of rooms and interstitial spaces. Each of the four rooms (nodes) in this multi-layered experiential environment is activated by a single source of sound or light at any given time. The installation uses Chromasonic Refrequencing, a real-time translation of light frequencies to sound, and sound frequencies to light, in effect making light audible or sound visible.
Multi-spectral sequences undulate between revealing the space entire, and enveloping visitors in localized color and sound, creating the perception of spatial elasticity. Participants experience themselves either fully contained in an opaque color-sound space, or connected to other areas within the installation by the mere manipulation of light and sound. Visitors experience each other fluctuating between appearing fully present, as ghosted silhouettes, or seemingly disappearing. The spatial fluidity engages participants in a continuous flow of perceptual activation and adjustment by rendering them in solid, diffused, and dematerialized states.
As a sensory catalyst, the installation is an opportunity to ponder presence individually and in community with others. It is an occasion to notice how our experience of a constantly shifting environment shapes the perspective of what we see and what we don’t see. Field Study, in its physically and perceptually immersive layering, creates an awareness of the momentary reality we are able to perceive at any given time, grounding us in presence.
The installation at the Lab serves as a study for the development of Sensory Field, a large-scale installation comprised of up to forty nodes and planned to be first exhibited later this year. The artists will introduce and test different sequences during the run of the exhibition to examine how that impacts the experience within the context of the four full-scale nodes installed at the Lab.
Chromasonic started as a collaborative studio and research lab formed by installation and multi-media artist Johannes Girardoni with sound artists and musicians Orpheo McCord and Joel Shearer. Chromasonic creates large-scale, polysensory installations to explore non-ordinary states of consciousness by developing organic technologies that connect light and sound frequencies in immersive communal environments.
Conceived as a cultural impact enterprise, Chromasonic proposes its work as a disruption to the attention-monopolizing effects of mainstream technologies that have permeated contemporary culture. Fusing science with art in light and sound, the studio embraces an ethical use of technology to integrate natural and artificial cognition. Chromasonic explores the potential of art as a catalyst to harmonize cognitive and somatic states while amplifying awareness and connection to self and others.
