Fugue Zones, ost

Description:

Fugue Zones, ost, was a multi-channel audiovisual installation by DeForrest Brown Jr., Steve Goodman (Kode9), and Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste. It embraced the multiple associations of the fugue as a conceptual point of departure—as a musical form, a psychological state, and a literary strategy—where meaning emerged through repetition, displacement, and transformation. Sound, image, architecture, and the contributions of the three artists circulated like interweaving voices across the Grand Luxe Hall, adjoining rooms, and surrounding streets. Signals were delayed, rerouted, and imitated; visual and sonic materials returned altered, producing layered counterpoint rather than a fixed origin. 

In this second iteration of their collaboration, the artists continued to engage a unique ensemble of consumer- and military-grade audio technologies designed for control, distraction, surveillance, entertainment, and force, asking: “What else can this do?” Police-grade devices became tonal instruments, subwoofers generated vibrational architecture, and directional speakers carved overlapping sonic zones. In the Luxe vestibule, a Holosonics Audio Spotlight directional speaker emitted looping film-title motifs, teasing arrival without resolution. Meanwhile, noise-cancelling headphones amplified Shepard tones, producing the auditory illusion of endless ascent.

By emphasizing latency, the work staged time contrapuntally: what was heard rarely matched what was seen, and interior and exterior folded into one another. 

Low-frequency sounds were felt as well as heard, creating an immersive environment that modulated tension, anticipation, and bodily awareness. A camera fitted with transducers captured a scene from the window of Western Front’s library. The resulting footage was presented as two simultaneous video projections: one live, and the other routed through a livestreaming platform to introduce compression and latency. The transducers converted low-frequency sound into physical vibration, actively shaking the camera as it recorded. Meanwhile, two subwoofers transmitted a separate low-frequency score through the walls adjoining the Grand Luxe Hall, allowing visitors to feel vibrations that echoed those seen on screen. Repurposed LRADs (Long-Range Acoustic Devices), typically used by law enforcement for crowd control, delivered focused audio, and a set of Genelec speakers diffused sound captured by an ambisonic microphone at the centre of the room. 

This interplay of image, sound, and vibration explored delayed perception, feedback, and the relationship between action and reception. Fugue Zones, ost became a living fugue: a dynamic system of repetition, transformation, flight, and return.

The work began at fifteen minutes after the top of each hour, and was approximately thirty minutes in length. 

Fugue Zones, ost was co-produced with Canary Test, Los Angeles with support from the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts Infinite Expansion Grant, the Canada Council for the Arts, and SOCAN Foundation.