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Two speakers are mounted in small plastic cases, which are suspended from the ceiling via thin
metal wires. A blue LED is mounted just above above each speaker. Viewers are invited to set
the speakers swinging in long, slow arcs through the dark space.
A CD player feeds sound to the speakers. The sound is a
woman's voice (Jody Diamond) quietly singing long, high notes. There are a number of silent
tracks on the CD, so there are occasional pauses in the sound.
Exactly the same sound is sent to each speaker. The speakers are unevenly weighted, so that
they do not swing at the same rate. As the speakers swing, the sounds coming from them are
doplar-shifted (their frequency changes) as a result of the movement of the speakers (like
the siren of an ambulance rising and falling as it comes and goes). The doplar-shifted sounds
from the two speakers, which are now at slightly different frequencies, interact and interfere
with one another, causing slight but perceivable acoustical beating (roughness, wobbly sound).
The blue LEDs on the speakers blink lazily. As the speakers swing, each LED leaves a trace of
its path in the air.
I like the idea that some signal (sound, light, thought, a person) is split off from itself,
and each copy is sent off on its own. Once split, the copies live parallel, but separate,
lives. Some time later they meet, and although they're still essentially the same signal, the
different routes they have taken, and the forces that have acted on them, have changed them in
subtle but important ways. Upon meeting, those changes become apparent. I think of this as a
primitive form of time travel.
Study for Time Travel was first presented at the CalArts
CEAIT Festival in 2000.
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douglas irving repetto
