Reading Voice
osmo/za, Ljubljana
28 November 2018
Reading Voice is an installation that explores the zone between, on the one hand, a spoken word as an event in time, and, on the other, a written word as an object in space. The cognitive activity of reading is disrupted and various spaces of encounter are staged between the reading body and the written text.
Central to the installation is a booth for a single viewer with a digital screen displaying text, an eye tracker and custom software that sonifies the reader’s gaze by instantly sounding phonemes they look at. This process unsettles the established relations between the voice, looking, written words and meaning. The disruption activates and stretches a pre-view of a view as an open temporal interval emerging between sensing and making sense. In addition a wall text and a printed booklet stage variants of the relations between text and reading body, their dispositions highlighting how each specifically define and affect the encounter and intra-action between the body and the text.
Reading Voice is a part of artistic research project Reading Reading (2017-). The research project is a manifestation of the various ways to capture, embody and unsettle the temporal relations that unfold between the written text, eye movement, and the (inner) voice while reading.
Colophon
READING VOICE (2018-19)
Installation by Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec
Text, sound, construction, software and hardware
Software designed by: Darien Brito with Giuliano Anzani
Construction: Scenart
Photo documentation: Till Cremer except front image.
Co-produced by:
Zavod Projekt Atol, Ljubljana – Slovenia
Zavod SPLOH, Ljubljana – Slovenia
Supported by:
Creative Industries Fund, The Netherlands
Mondriaan Fund, The Netherlands
Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia
City of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Bio
Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec is Amsterdam-based artist with a particular focus in sound, new media, real-time interaction, and questions of contemporary mediation in relation to the sense of (bodily) presence. His recent work consists of spatial and sound installations, events and interventions, where (un)mediated sonic events act as central element that affectively evokes human bodily presence, while signaling its physical absence. His works encompass interdisciplinary and mixed media installations, sound interventions and electro acoustic music.
Born in 1972 (Ljubljana – Slovenia), he received BA at Trondheim Music Conservatory (Norway), BA in music composition and MA at Interfaculty Image and Sound – ArtScience, both at The Royal Conservatory in The Hague – The Netherlands, where he also followed Sonology course.
He earned his PhD in Artistic Research from Faculty of Fine Art at University in Bergen, Norway, where he was the recipient of Norwegian Artistic Research Fellowship (2013 – 2016). In 2017 he took part in Research Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale. In 2010 his work was awarded at Ars Electronica Festival in Linz – Austria.
Since 2018 he is member of artistic committee of puntWG project space in Amsterdam and a member of artistic committee of DNK – Amsterdam, a series of experimental contemporary music and sound art concerts, events, lectures and exhibitions. Together wit Sascha Pohle, he is initiatior and organizer of Home Sequence, an exhibition taking place in the private homes of Amsterdam-based artists. In 2001 he founded international cycle of sound events, lectures and workshops Bitshift in Kapelica Gallery – Ljubljana. He is currently the recipient of Mondriaan Fund Stipendium for Established Artists – Werkbijdrage Bewezen Talent (2018 – 2022).
His works were shown and performed in various museums, project spaces and festivals, amongst other at Kapelica Gallery – Ljubljana, Public Space With a Roof Gallery (PSWAR) – Amsterdam, Sonic Acts Festival – Amsterdam, Ars Electronica Festival – Linz – Austria, Museum of Modern Art – Ljubljana, AV Festival – Newcastle Upon Tyne, SKUC Gallery – Ljubljana, State Museum of Contemporary Art – Thessaloniki – Greece, Gwangju Museum of Art – Gwangju – South Korea, Reseach Pavilion – Venice – Italy, Madrid Abierto – Madrid, Musica a Metronom – Barcelona, Gaudeamus Music Week – Amsterdam, Forum neuer Musik – Köln, festival of contemporary music Contemporanea 2004 – Udine, CMMAS – Morelia, Mexico, Moon Life Concept Store, Shanghai, Toonspur – MuseumsQuartier, Vienna …
Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec
