Natasha Priddle

Metaphors for the Unknown

Metaphor Illustration 708X1024
'Metaphor'

'Metaphors for the Unknown' engages with concerns of socio-environmental relations as critical provocations for contemporary art. The project contributes to the contemporary vision of art/environmentalism, following artists such as Natalie Jerimenjenko, Herman Kolgen and Deborah Robinson. Like these artists, 'Metaphors for the Unknown' is a multi-disciplined research project, which targets different fields of experiential ecology; psycho-acoustics, gestalt and cognitive metaphor, to influence corporeal experience, and to explore the fluidity of our constructed architectures of knowledge.

Two installations, one inside the gallery, the other out-side its glass doors, recognise the cultural divide between human and environmental domains.  The works address two questions: can sound be harnessed as an organ of environmental bio-acoustics - relay environmental experiences to us?  Can creative installations help modern culture engage with the environment on a daily basis?  Metaphors for the Unknown presents a technological series, fledgling prototypes, which are motivated to interpret the local climate.  

Inside the gallery space, eight suspended speakers present eight simultaneous recordings from contact microphones.  The sounds are the captured sensations of wind movement as experienced by the three-dimensional form of the host tree outside.  These sounds share a space with two drawings, detailing some of the theoretical foundations of the three technological works, they also serve as a conceptual link between the two installation realms.  

Outside, a pair of sound sculptures measure ultraviolet light and soil moisture in real time; these data translations are enacted upon musical instruments.  Vibration becomes a liminal concept permeating each of the works.  It is represented in the raw transduction of electricity through conductive materials, through the abstraction of data into sound using vibration motors, through the recording of wind vibration, and the vibration of graphite lines illustrating form and conceptual language on paper. 

(These  works represent a year of self-education in Arduino technology: electrical circuitry, schematics, fine soldering, computer coding and technological problem solving, new skills on route to further conceptual development.)


 

Installation One: Outdoors

 
20161011 165638 768X1024
Solar Panel
Drum With Power Box 1024X683
'Aquarian' Moisture Sensor with Drum.
Cymbal 1024X683 1024X683
'UVO' Ultraviolet Sensor with Drum Cymbal.
Beneath Cymbal 1024X683
Beneath the cymbal.

Installation Two:

 
Img 0387 683X1024
Custom Made Speaker with Arduino in the background.
Img 0386 1024X683 1024X683
Arduino sound system / amplifier.
Final Wind Installation 1024X560 2
Eight channel suspended sound installation.
Moisture Tree Drawing 1024X703
'Xylem, Phloem'
Img 0385 1024X671
'Ultraviolet'
Film for 'Human Nature' exhibition.

Related Artists