Installations in 2002

A Guided Tour of the Sound Installations will begin @ 5 PM on August 17th where the audience will be given a chance to meet the composers of these installations.

Sign Waves - Phase Two is an exhibition of multi-media and sound installations exploring resonance and the visual and sonic elements of the underground reservoirs, the Chemistry Building & Toronto Island. Prepare to interact with your surroundings in an aural journey of exploration as you take in the four installations Reservoir by Darren Copeland, Distributed Resonance by Bentley Jarvis, Inside the Eye of Silence by Vivienne Spiteri & Rob Godman and Watercolor by Michael Davey and Delwyn Higgins (Admission PWYC). Copies of the Sign Waves Companion booklet will be available at the exhibition

Reservoir by Darren Copeland is an interactive sound installation that asks the visitors to participate in the piece by providing their own sounds and explores the resonant qualities of the underground reservoirs at the Water Filtration Plant. Distributed Resonance by Bentley Jarvis is the newest in an ongoing series of sound sculptures exploring tuned resonance. Inside the Eye of Silence by Vivienne Spiteri & Rob Godman is a sound installation that transforms the sound of the harpsichord as it passes through 8 rooms in the Chemistry Building. Watercolor by Michael Davey and Delwyn Higgins is a site-specific artwork that includes a football-sized field of painted manhole covers viewable from the Chemistry Building.

The Walls Are Still Weeping" is an immersive and interactive multi-media installation that is about memory, journeys and life cycles in all their many forms. Enter an otherworldly place filled with materials to touch, explore and transform on the journey as your movement through the space is imperceptibly linked by new technology to audio and lighting events creating a heightened experience of sound, colour, texture and movement through a cumulative process of storytelling. With the theatre's fourth wall removed, you are at once the spectator and the performer, not merely watching the play, but within it, not simply listening to the story, but actively finding and (re)living the journey.

The title "The Walls are Still Weeping" refers to Billingsgate Fish Market's building in London, England where the foundation walls continue to ooze seepage from the River Thames. This site in London is the inspiration for the architectural details of the installation enclosure. Within the installation, sand and salt form patterns like water currents on the floor, crunching underfoot as you walk. You encounter large plexiglass walls containing sand and salt. Crushed ice in the top section of these walls continuously melts,slowly filtering through the sand and salt until it weeps out the bottom of the walls.

As you approach large glass containers of eels on the floor, lights intensify, a voice begins to describe an eel's instinctual migration and physical changes. In the centre of the space, you are drawn to an artifact reminiscent of a nest. It is a coracle, an ancient boat, which floats above you. A platform underneath it invites you to stand on top and explore the vessel's dimly lit interior. As you walk around the circumference of the coracle, your movement triggers the presence of a storyteller (Etienne's Grandfather) retelling the story of his life in England and his journey to Canada.

"The Walls Are Still Weeping" is a journey of transformation. It is created and produced by Mundus Imaginalis, an artist collective that includes Scenographer Tania Etienne, Electroacoustic Sound Designer Darren Copeland, Interactive Design Engineer Jim Ruxton and New Media Program Designer Galen Scorer.