Aluminum Forest (2021, rev. 2024)

created in collaboration with Katherine Balch.

Scores of hand-crafted aluminum chimes are placed all throughout the garden. Each is independently agitated by a small DC motor creating varying gestures, trajectories, and timbres. Motion sensors (connected to the motors through a small Arduino controller) trigger added agitation, acknowledging audiences presence and allowing them to participate in shaping the sonic environment. The Arduinos are also be controlled via WiFi enabling the entire system of chimes to be a performative space creating motions and gestures of sound that encompass the space and can adapt to different configuration of chimes and installation sites.

When Aluminum Forest was presented at the Forward Festival in Lucerne Switzerland we held community workshops in which local participants created similar aluminum chimes, many of which were added to the installation presentation.