Christian Oyarzún: drumCircle[ ]

Artist(s):

• Christian Oyarzún

Title:

drumCircle[ ]

Exhibition:

• SIGGRAPH 2017: Unsettled Artifacts: Technological Speculations from Latin America

Creation Year:

2017

Category:

• Installation

Artist Statement:

drumCircle[ ] (2015) is an autonomous percussion and light instrument composed of an ensemble of eight connected den-den drums mounted to LED spotlights that create a temporal and spatial network of interactions between these machines and the viewer. Arranged in a circle pointing inward toward the center of the installation, these modules project light and sound patterns bidirectionally, creating an immersive and ritualistic technological experience that brings to light connections between technology, corporeality, and time.

Technically, drumCircle[ ] is an eight-step light and drum sequencer machine that “transduces” mechanical and electrical energy into shadows, lights, and sounds. Informed by the ideas of philosopher Gilbert Simondon, drumCircle[ ] understands transduction as not only the transformation and translation of one kind of signal into another, but also as a process that extends to our daily relationships with technological tools as techno-political schemes that give rise to our experience of life.

drumCircle[ ] seeks to make explicit how our notions of space and time are shaped by technology, creating relationships of dominance and meaning between subjects and objects, modifying our cognitive processes and the symbolic relationships we create with our environment.