The air gets tight upon entering the gallery space of Angelina Almanza’s Resonance. An atmospheric shift occurs. It’s similar to entering a dark, dank chapel or a clearing of trees. There is an unexpected holiness here; it can catch you off guard. It feels devoted to something larger, of which you immediately become a part of. Resonance, after all, is about participation through embodied listening. Realize that you are not simply skin, that you are also goo and light and water. There is no choice to be made: upon entrance you become a part of this chorus. The vibration runs through you and you become a part of the equation. To resonate is to be one with others.
Four monolithic pillars rise through low lighting, singing close to the ground. Three others are adjacent presences. Within every one of the pillars is a small computer, attuned to a server that attaches each to an algorithm. As they move between notes, they are listening to one another and adjusting accordingly, choosing what note to sing next based on what is being sung around them. In the centre of the ring of pillars, a circular rug encourages you to lay down, as one would at the base of a tree or in dewy grass. If you feel an immediate hesitation you must fight it, allow yourself to be permeated by atmosphere and architecture.
I became a part of the equation. I feel like you could split me into quarters if you wanted to. I could become this singing ring of pillars. You could split me into fours and mold each one to be tall and thin. To be proud and menacing. To intimidate and stretch and arch and stand firm. To be immovable. I feel as though I could become one of them, to join in their oscillating chorus, to sing and scream as though we are many cicadas crouched in a cluster of trees. To be one with the others. I have been thinking about a line at the start of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, “for every atom that belongs to me as good belongs to you”. I think about how each sound I hear physically moves through my body and touches my skin. This can be the sound of another voice, the singing of someone next to me, the prayers, the hopes, the wishes. I think about how I am a part of all of these sounds, and they, in turn, are a part of me. I hear it in my ears; I feel it in my bones.
As I think of resonance, I think not just of relationships with other people, but also relationships with tools and instruments. Instruments can become owners of their own presence, and I know one quite well, the no-input mixer. A no-input mixer is well described by its name, it’s when one plugs in the input of a mixer into the output and then manipulates the feedback by twisting and tweaking the knobs of the interface. It’s a cacophonous instrument, even the smallest of adjustments can significantly change the sound which ranges from high pitch wavering sirens to thunderous, percussive heartbeats. Because I’m playing feedback, I need to listen intently to chase the sound I desire. The sounds of the mixer will hint at something and I have to slowly adjust the knobs to get closer to a specific drone or beat.
Sometimes I don’t need to adjust or even touch the mixer, it will transition to a new sound entirely on its own. Its ability to change without intervention, its sudden surprises and the element of chance, all make me feel like I’m holding something alive. It makes its own decisions, takes its own turns and breaths. My relationship to it when I play is not one of using, it’s one of addition. It plays and I listen, I play and it listens. It feels like a harnessing of both of our energies, it feels like singing or screaming together. The looping, loping feedback of a no input mixer is a resonating instrument and when I play it, I feel conjoined. And when I play for people, I think about how we all become connected in the unspoken communication of a performance. The audience takes and I give and then in reverse as well. Being in a soundscape together feels like a tidal relationship, an ebb and flow. Sound brings us together, whether it’s harmonious, dissonant or, as simple as breath.
The world is so cruel in all of its horror and injustice and it can all make me feel helpless and hopeless. It can make me feel dog-tired. There is time for action and grit, but in some moments all I can do is to listen. All I can do is sit in a dark room and listen to someone or something play a dissonant note for thirty minutes. Or sit in a church pew and listen to an organ note, quivering through morning air. Or lay on a rug in a gallery and listen to computational performers singing to each other. In these moments I can even grow a little bored of listening, I’m a little restless. But if I hold out, if I push a little longer, there is a particular place I enter.
Listening feels like a kind of worship here, an integration of body, mind, and spirit. In this place, I worship at the feet of a life that is so broad and bright it hurts me. The collectivity is palpable and the connection is awe-inspiring. It’s laced in a hum that’s all around. It’s in the sound of the cicadas and wasps. Even the trees themselves hum. Cicadas must get hot in those summer months, I think. Screaming must make their small chests hurt and crispy arm-pits sweat. It must be catharsis and pain and rage and love, their singing together, in communion and fragility. But oh, I will always have hope in this life when there are people and things to sing alongside. So long as the forest hums, I have hope.
The air gets tight upon entering the gallery space of Angelina Almanza’s Resonance. An atmospheric shift occurs. It’s similar to entering a dark, dank chapel or a clearing of trees. There is an unexpected holiness here; it can catch you off guard. It feels devoted to something larger, of which you immediately become a part of. Resonance, after all, is about participation through embodied listening. Realize that you are not simply skin, that you are also goo and light and water. There is no choice to be made: upon entrance you become a part of this chorus. The vibration runs through you and you become a part of the equation. To resonate is to be one with others.
Four monolithic pillars rise through low lighting, singing close to the ground. Three others are adjacent presences. Within every one of the pillars is a small computer, attuned to a server that attaches each to an algorithm. As they move between notes, they are listening to one another and adjusting accordingly, choosing what note to sing next based on what is being sung around them. In the centre of the ring of pillars, a circular rug encourages you to lay down, as one would at the base of a tree or in dewy grass. If you feel an immediate hesitation you must fight it, allow yourself to be permeated by atmosphere and architecture.
I became a part of the equation. I feel like you could split me into quarters if you wanted to. I could become this singing ring of pillars. You could split me into fours and mold each one to be tall and thin. To be proud and menacing. To intimidate and stretch and arch and stand firm. To be immovable. I feel as though I could become one of them, to join in their oscillating chorus, to sing and scream as though we are many cicadas crouched in a cluster of trees. To be one with the others. I have been thinking about a line at the start of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, “for every atom that belongs to me as good belongs to you”. I think about how each sound I hear physically moves through my body and touches my skin. This can be the sound of another voice, the singing of someone next to me, the prayers, the hopes, the wishes. I think about how I am a part of all of these sounds, and they, in turn, are a part of me. I hear it in my ears; I feel it in my bones.
As I think of resonance, I think not just of relationships with other people, but also relationships with tools and instruments. Instruments can become owners of their own presence, and I know one quite well, the no-input mixer. A no-input mixer is well described by its name, it’s when one plugs in the input of a mixer into the output and then manipulates the feedback by twisting and tweaking the knobs of the interface. It’s a cacophonous instrument, even the smallest of adjustments can significantly change the sound which ranges from high pitch wavering sirens to thunderous, percussive heartbeats. Because I’m playing feedback, I need to listen intently to chase the sound I desire. The sounds of the mixer will hint at something and I have to slowly adjust the knobs to get closer to a specific drone or beat.
Sometimes I don’t need to adjust or even touch the mixer, it will transition to a new sound entirely on its own. Its ability to change without intervention, its sudden surprises and the element of chance, all make me feel like I’m holding something alive. It makes its own decisions, takes its own turns and breaths. My relationship to it when I play is not one of using, it’s one of addition. It plays and I listen, I play and it listens. It feels like a harnessing of both of our energies, it feels like singing or screaming together. The looping, loping feedback of a no input mixer is a resonating instrument and when I play it, I feel conjoined. And when I play for people, I think about how we all become connected in the unspoken communication of a performance. The audience takes and I give and then in reverse as well. Being in a soundscape together feels like a tidal relationship, an ebb and flow. Sound brings us together, whether it’s harmonious, dissonant or, as simple as breath.
The world is so cruel in all of its horror and injustice and it can all make me feel helpless and hopeless. It can make me feel dog-tired. There is time for action and grit, but in some moments all I can do is to listen. All I can do is sit in a dark room and listen to someone or something play a dissonant note for thirty minutes. Or sit in a church pew and listen to an organ note, quivering through morning air. Or lay on a rug in a gallery and listen to computational performers singing to each other. In these moments I can even grow a little bored of listening, I’m a little restless. But if I hold out, if I push a little longer, there is a particular place I enter.
Listening feels like a kind of worship here, an integration of body, mind, and spirit. In this place, I worship at the feet of a life that is so broad and bright it hurts me. The collectivity is palpable and the connection is awe-inspiring. It’s laced in a hum that’s all around. It’s in the sound of the cicadas and wasps. Even the trees themselves hum. Cicadas must get hot in those summer months, I think. Screaming must make their small chests hurt and crispy arm-pits sweat. It must be catharsis and pain and rage and love, their singing together, in communion and fragility. But oh, I will always have hope in this life when there are people and things to sing alongside. So long as the forest hums, I have hope.