Co-Motion Single Field Instrument

Description:

Co-Motion Single Field Instrument was a performance by Nour Mobarak presented at Libby Leshgold Gallery.

Mobarak is an artist working in performance, sound installation, and sculpture to create inter-sensory systems that reframe how we perceive the body and voice in space. In Co-Motion Single Field Instrument, Mobarak turns the gallery into a room-sized instrument by using a real-time tracking system designed and conceptualized by the artist and digitally programmed by Alex Iglizian to trigger sounds, samples, and audio and lighting effects as she moves across a colour-coded grid on the floor.

Across the sixty-minute duration of her two performances, Mobarak improvised and interacted with different modes of sound synthesis to explore the shifting reactions to her location and how the system becomes an uncanny collaborator—with the sounds triggered affecting Mobarak’s movement and live vocalizations, which in turn, affects the sound.

Alongside Mobarak’s own vocalizations, the work also layers in many other voices drawn from a large sound bank of samples that she compiled. These include recordings of some of the most phonemically complex languages, such as Taa, Abkhaz, San Juan Quiahije Eastern Chatino, and Silbo Gomero—each one reflecting a much wider sonic palette than languages like English.

Co-Motion Single Field Instrument was originally commissioned by Lampo and The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, where the project was organized by Andrew Fenchel and Karsten Lund.

Presented in partnership with Libby Leshgold Gallery. 

Curated by Aki Onda.

Video documentation is available upon request.