type
Mixed media interactive installation (water, speaker, real-time image and motion capture, projection)
year
2023
concept
Resonating Absence takes inspiration from the untranslatable word “Awumbuk”: the melancholy and sense of emptiness that linger after a guest departs. The work reflects on the fragility of interpersonal relationships, using water as a mirror of the inner turbulence that follows the absence of a loved one.
As spectators approach, sensors detect their presence and set the water in motion. The visitor becomes the guest: their closeness agitates the surface, their departure lets it settle. The stillness that returns is not peace but the quiet left behind.
Water conceptually carries this weight naturally. It recurs in many culture as purification of body and spirit, and recalls our first relationship, the womb, where water surrounds us before we enter the world. In Resonating Absence, it becomes a container for the movement between presence and loss.
description
The work activates as the viewer approaches the pedestal. At its center, a petri dish conceals a speaker that moves the water through sound vibrations. A Kinect sensor tracks the viewer’s position and distance, sending the data to a program, which modulates in real time the frequency of the water’s vibration.
A micro-camera positioned above the surface captures the patterns forming on the water. The image is projected at a larger scale onto the wall, so that the viewer’s own presence becomes the material of the piece.
exhibitions
Ars Electronica Festival 2023 (AT)
Speculum Artium Festival 2023 (SI)
WIP Festival 2023 (CY)
Cross Section - WAH Gallery Linz (AT)
