NICOLE SABELLA
“If you can’t sense it, it’s not my revolution.”
#AUGMENTED REALITY #BODY #DIGITAL #INSTALLATION #INTERACTIVE #PHOTOGRAPHY #VIDEO #VIRTUAL REALITY #EXISTENTIAL
BIO.
Nicole Sabella is an artist, cultural scientist and art educatrix engaging in performative strategies that are strongly informed by queer feminist thinking and collaborative practices. Through them she investigates the sociopolitical bonds between body, language, voice, sound, and space, and the way they unfold in constantly changing constellations or “choreo:spheres“. Her work is driven by the basic forces of rhythm, humor and failure (nowadays known as glitch), often assembling or dissolving into analog:digital performative sound installations.
Technology is her friend and foe.
TENTECHULAR DIS:PLEASURES #2: Omotatatatatat (2021)
Interactive Sound Installation
As part of the installation & performance series TENTECHULAR DIS:PLEASURES (since 2019), “Omotatatatatat” dived further into “tentechular” qualities of sound: a portmanteau of “tentacular” ( a sensual form of relating to human and non-human beings as presented by Donna Haraway in her book Staying with the Trouble (2016) )- and “technological”.
With the help of childhood fetishes of shamelessly zeitgeisty appeal (neon yellow anti-stress rubber balls), visitors were able to experience affective impressions along the fine line between comfort and discomfort, closeness and distance, body and technology at the interface of analog and digital spaces and materialities.
Based on formerly analog voice material, the space was filled with ever-changing generative voice patterns of SirenX that were created by using the open source programming language Pure Data (PD). Visitors were invited to interact with the stress balls by exploring different qualities of touch. Be it plucking, squeezing, or petting. While touching the objects, they started a co-compositional process: incorporated piezo microphones with selected attached materials responded to the touch with additional sounds.
Photos: © Nora Jacobs
SirenX (2019 - ongoing)
Performance
SirenX are an analog:digital entity that seek to queer the social reception of voice by means of categories such as gender, origin, species, age, etc. They obsess about the physical reproduction of electronic sound effects.
Within the sound installation TENTECHULAR DIS:PLEASURES #3, SirenX invited the audience to explore means of joint vibrational communication.
Based on caterpillar sounds like clacking, chirping, whistling, burping, drumming or scratching, SirenX translated those noises into sounds and frequencies audible to the human ear:
OMOTATATAT
WUWUWU
PURRRRRR
BZZBZZBZZ
CHOMCHOM
TENTEKTEK
They formed a loose score within the exhibition space and served as an invit
ation to sound along.
Outside the opening hours of the exhibition, the SirenXCaterpillar Vibrations were accessible via QR-code on the windowpane, providing a link to the sound samples on Soundcloud.
Photos: © Studio Fjeld
TENTECHULAR DIS:PLEASURES #3: Gib mir ein F, SirenX (Give me an F, SirenX) (2021)
Mixed media installation & live performance
Based on an encounter with a small, hairy, yellow caterpillar called Calliteara pudibunda on Hundertwasserallee in Salzburg, the installation "Gib mir ein F, SirenX" (Give me an F, SirenX) explores the possibilities of vibrational communication between human and non-human actors.
Caterpillars communicate via vibrations that are largely imperceptible to the human ear. Using sophisticated recording and analysis equipment, bioacousticians have so far been able to identify the following typical caterpillar sounds: they clack and chirp with their chewing tools, emit whistling and burp-like sounds, or produce drumming and scratching noises with their anal oars.
The SirenXCaterpillar Vibrations - caterpillar sounds translated by SirenX into sounds audible to the human ear - form a loose score and serve as an invitation to sound along and engage in an interspecies vibrational exchange. The installation consists of two video screens with video material providing visual rhythms, a digital photo frame with a corresponding qr-code linked to sound samples on soundcloud for an individual sound-along outside exhibition opening hours, and a speaker for the sound score.