Cyborg Series & From Sound to Sight

Introduction

     Cyborg Series is an ongoing multimedia experiment focusing on the boundary between science fiction and social reality. Inspired by the exhibition, Age of You (2019), held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto, and Donna Haraway’s essay, “Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”, this surrealistic series deals with themes of identity, materialism, and possibility. Since the rise of social media platforms in the twenty-first century, society has fallen into the cycle of yearning for validation through their online status. Where do we draw the line between online validation and self-reassurance? The Coronavirus pandemic has further accelerated the reliance on technology, escalating anxiety issues, and social media addiction. Our lack of face-to-face connection has ultimately caused a widespread identity crisis. Cyborg Series is a personal plea for self-belonging amidst a glass world; it contemplates the need for self-awareness and poses the question: Who am I when my technological counterparts have been stripped away?

      From Sound to Sight explores the intersections of various art forms (figure skating and drawing) and of two senses (sight and sound). This series portrays how the various senses can overlap and be made into visual art. This work is metamorphic in how it takes something impalpable, such as sound, and turns it into a tangible representation. These drawings were created via audio recordings of various figure skating movements on ice. Upon a close listening to the recordings, the sounds were drawn. The drawings represent a point of intersection while simultaneously challenging our perception of art and its relationship with sound. Various considerations were exercised to translate the sound recordings into visual form; these included the shape of each movement, the depth and density of each sound as well as the length of it, and finally, the pitch and height of each sound. To illustrate as an example, the background in Heel Drag consists of geometric shapes, particularly triangles, to portray the sharpness of the sound whereas the background in Pumping is comprised of geometric shapes because the sound is much smoother and of a lower tone. These methods of translation help to make sense of the drawn abstract forms that depict each sound. As a collection of work, From Sound to Sight reflects transformation, exploration, and translation.