Libr_array

BACKGROUND: The power of audiovisual sychresis (Chion 1994) whether explored academically as a cinematic principle or creatively by artists such as Ryoji Ikeda (video) or Robin Fox (lasers) is well established. It has the capacity to provide a deep value-add when sound and image are structurally locked in a one to one relationship. Beyond the perceptual resonance of such simple suture (Gorbman), sound also has the capacity to confer authentication on narrative, being used to anchor images into meaning (Gorbman). Anchorage and suture are often viewed as discrete positions in audiovisual relationships. Libr_array, through its relationship with lighting, sound design and electronic music, was an opportunity to challenge this dichotomy. CONTRIBUTION: This project takes Science Fiction's "imagination of disaster" (Sontag, 1966) articulated through a carefully sculpted sound design of engines, confirmation alerts and mechanical activity, and places this frenzy of narrative-articulating stress into tension with the detached sychretic logic of an audiovision more about gleeful groove than any inferred meaning. The site chosen to install the speakers and the lights - the perforated loading bay door of the library - further heightened the tension between a futuristic looking environment activated by light and the drift of meaning from cinematic authentication to mindless dance. SIGNIFICANCE: This experimental work synthesizes two very distinct approaches to audiovisual relationships into a successful (and popular) installation for a large-scale public event. The collaboration brought together sound designers, lighting designers, industrial designers and system designers across multiple schools and programs. It was funded by grants from City of Melbourne as well as Geelong after Dark.