semaphore
a multi-layered collaborative project with the Jaramillo Neuroscience Lab at the University of Oregon, composer Jesse Mejía + CHOIR, and typeface design with Maurann Stein. commissioned by the Oregon Arts Commission's Percent for Art in Public Places Program and supported by Third Culture Projects, a series that invited collaborations between scientists working in the Lewis Integrative Science Building at the University of Oregon with artists from across the country.
2016
for this project, Audra Wolowiec was in partnership as an artist in residence with the Neuroscience Lab of Santiago Jaramillo, that studies how meaning, memory, and attention are assigned to sounds. in response to her time listening and observing in the lab, she created a series of sound scores that mined the influential lecture The Two Cultures, by C. P. Snow, that mediates the divide between the arts and sciences. the words SEMAPHORE, SYNAPSE and SYNCOPE were used to redact the text, to bring these letters to the surface, mining the gaps and slippages to create a new, third space of communication. these language-based sound scores were poetic translations of both the original text and in visual reference to the neuron data gathered from the lab.
Wolowiec then worked with Portland-based composer Jesse Mejía to create a durational vocal performance with his experimental group, CHOIR, that was performed on site in the Lewis Integrative Science Building at the University of Oregon, a visceral chorus of vocals in the absence of recognizable language.
CHOIR voices | Tad Bamford, Michael Bunsen, Jin Camou, Benjamin Cleek, Sage Fisher, Liz Goltz, Carol Hickman, Justine Highsmith, Heidi Nelms, Chelsea Petrakis, Alyssa Reed- Stuewe, Anke Schuettler, Jeanne Snodgrass, Jackie Vargas, Gabi Villasenor, Allan Wilson
SEMAPHORE FLAG performers | Lindsey Allgood, Mandy Hampton, Laura Hughes, Julia Oldham, Esther Weng
SEMAPHORE TYPEFACE | collaboration with Maurann Stein
MUSIC BOX the sound of mice listening | data gathered and translated into music scores available at the Jaramillo Lab, Lewis Integrative Science Building (215 LISB), University of Oregon, Eugene
this took place in October 2016 at the University of Oregon in the Lewis Integrative Science Building (LISB), Eugene, OR and the Extradition Series, Portland, OR. Third Culture Projects is supported through the Oregon Arts Commission's Percent for Art in Public Places Program.
special thanks to Branic Howard for the live audio recording at Extradition and Eric Corwin for video assistance.
image credit: Greg Wahl-Stephens