Kelly Mark: Sound Bites

Shooting Hoops Theatre Applause Violin Lesson Exercise Class Badminton Game Swimming Lesson

 

Sound Bites - 2002

Site specific installation for The Koffler Gallery's Flex Program

The main focus or function of the piece entitled “Sound-Bites” was to, in some small way, bring as many of the separate environments of the sprawling Koffler center together in order to form a more cohesive view and or experience of the whole.
Upon visiting the site for the first time the thing that first attracted my attention were the sounds of several of the distinct areas within the center.

Notably, the first one that caught my senses and my mind was…The sound of a single person on the basketball court, the running shoes squeaking on the highly waxed floors, and the ball echoing off the walls in the uniquely acoustic environment…I felt the same way with the sounds of splashing and somewhat muffled voices in the pool area…and then I imagined the sounds of applause in the theatre and what other unique auditory environments were to be found here.

This got me thinking about wanting to displace these isolated, highly specialized fractured elements of sound and experience of site into other areas of the center. To help merge the solitary encounter into a collective one.
In my effort in wanting to link these detached locales of experience I thought back to my initial encounters with them…how I arrived at them…literally.

It was through travelling hallways, going up and down staircases, entering elevators and following outdoor paths. All of these act as vital public arteries connecting each area – all of which in turn paradoxically act as distances between each area. I then realized it was these crucial midway points that I would focus my attention on.

I installed 6 discreet white utility boxes in these areas each playing a captured sound from differnent parts of the Koffler complex:

 

1. Basketball Court

2. Theatre Applause

3. Violin Lesson

4. Exercise Class

5. Badminton Game

6. Swimming Lesson