Orb Radio
Curated by Wavelength
All Caps Island Festival
Artscape Gibraltar Point, Toronto Islands
August 11-12th, 2012
Project Text:
Orb Radio was a two part installation consisting of a miniature lighthouse/FM radio transmitter located on the shore of Lake Ontario and a FM receiver disguised as a PA inside the entrance hallway of Artscape Gibraltar Point. The text of the two elements purported to transmit the sounds of the lake from the lighthouse to the PA system. However, in actuality the lighthouse contained an FM transmitter that was transmitting prerecorded sounds of an ocean shore extracted from youtube. These sounds were then transmitted via FM transmitter to the PA in the hallway.
Nature is experienced as a simulation to an audience who accepts the artists' text as an authority. The text is not completely devoid of reflexivity and in fact ends with the statement "listen carefully". This reflexivity is again present in the 10 minute sound sample which concludes with a minute of silence before looping. Orb Radio critiques the mediated experience of nature in a modern urban context and the willingness of society to supplant lived experience for simulation. It is a framed nature as consumable spectacle. Furthermore, Orb Radio attempts to draw attention to the very constructedness and mediated nature of the experience of 'nature' in the Toronto Islands themselves, which are largely landfill construction and English picturesque garden design.
Video:
youtube
The Lighthouse
The Lighthouse
The Lighthouse
The Lighthouse
The PA System inside Artscape
The Lighthouse (detail)
The Lighthouse (detail)
The Lighthouse
The Lighthouse