Party Wall (4ft x 4ft x 8ft) is a mixed media installation with multi-channel audio. The work was created as a sonic response to a provocation from Jeff Lambson, curator of the 2024 Redline Resident Artists exhibition Home Dreams.
A free standing gallery wall was carefully decorated to feel like a slice cut from a shared wall in a typical furnished apartment building- rendered in the familiar tones of grey and beige favored by landlords in the US. From either side of the wall, a raging party could be heard coming from the neighboring apartment. Shaking the furnishings, the music and chatter was inescapable, but elusive- the party was always on the other side of the wall.
Home is often a space where intimacy between strangers is fostered through close proximity. Party Wall is about the ways in which the sounds of other's home lives can break through into ours. It's increasingly likely that we haven't met our neighbors, but we hear them, and (in one very specific way) we know them.
Party Wall is also part of my ongoing exploration of the kinetic and animating elements of sound, and a new investigation of the acoustic properties of gypsum drywall and lumber (as a transmitting medium and transforming medium, creating a natural and familiar low-pass filter).
