My work with kinetic text is ongoing practiced-based research that focuses on the temporal links between voice, sound and animated text. This work is presented both in fixed digital video and generative audiovisual installations. Example projects are detailed below:
- Total Index
- sayesex
- Close Your Eyes and Read
- Back ande Vor
Total Index
Collaboration with digital artist Christian Chereene – Total Index is an immersive installation with dual-visual projection and four-channel sound. Influenced by Paul Guzzardo’s dystopian theories on emergent social media, the work sonifies localised tweets via granulated text-to-speech synthesis and layers this with glitching text animation and local CCTV footage.
Exhibited:
1-2 August 2012 : Irish Sound, Science and Technology Convocation.
St John’s College, Cork.
Presented at conference:
D’Arcy, J. (2013) ‘Poetic Collaboration’. Creative Exchange Northern Ireland initiative launch-event, E3 Belfast.
sayesex
sayesex is an generative poem that runs live in a gallery context. The work builds on the digital aesthetic of Total Index, whilst removing audible voice and adjusting generative algorithms.
sayesex experiments with temporal lettering and the inner voice. Multiple readings of a block of letters are induced through serial and random processes that trigger textual animations in sequential phrases and chance pairings. Sound cues aid the eye, directing to changes in the lettering.
Exhibited:
12-16 November 2012 : DAS2012. Digital Arts Studios, Belfast
Presented at conference:
D’Arcy, J. (2013) ‘Boys and Girls in Digital Art’. Contemporary Gendered Performance & Practice. Queen’s University Belfast
Close Your Eyes and Read
The video shows a short sample in aerial view of the immersive audiovisual installation Close Your Eyes and Read. The installation varies in scale (12 – 26 screens) and explores synchronicity and disruption between reading and listening processes. The work expands on strategies developed in from Total Index and sayesex, with an extended 360-degree spatial immersion for the viewer.
Close Your Eyes and Read was developed with the support of R:Space Gallery with Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Lottery funding.
Exhibited:
7 March 2014 : R:Space Gallery, Lisburn (Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Lottery funded exhibition).
4 April 2014 : Naughton Gallery, Belfast.
3-4 May 2014 : Sonorities Festival, Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast.
Presented at conference:
D’Arcy, J. (2014) ‘Off the Page, in the Ear, on the Street’. The Expanded Lyric, Queen’s University Belfast.
Back ande Vor
Collaboration with film-maker Deborah Uhde – Back and Vor uses subtitling to examine translation, interpretation and failure in communication. Following the experimentation with temporal linkages between audible voice and visual text in Close Your Eyes and Read, Back and Vor incorporates moving image cues and bi-lingual wordplay.
Back ande Vor was produced at Up-and-Coming Film Festival, Hannover.
Screened:
6 June 2014 : Up-and-Coming Festival. Staatstheater Cinema, Hannover.
24 July 2014 : Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Braunschweig University, Braunschweig.
8 September 2014 : International Sommercampus, Kalbe.
12 November 2014 : Braunschweig International FilmFestival, Braunschweig.
29 November 2014 : High Performance, Schützenbahn, Essen.
17 January 2015 : Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Stuttgart.
Presented at conference:
D’Arcy, J. (2014) ‘Intermedia Vocal Practice’. Metropolitanisms, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast.