60 Cycle hum redux (2018)
Audiovisual performance featuring 6 vocalists making 60 movements of breath, and - with each exhalation - attempting to hum a pitch of 60 Hertz (played simultaneously on a personal audio device). The average frequency range for the human voice is approximately 85-255 Hertz. Hence, performers are required to interpret and reproduce what they hear.
Performance concludes after each vocalist has hummed through the series of inhalations/exhalations. Custom-designed software oscilloscope visualizes the the resulting sound field with overlapping lissajous figures.
60 Hertz is the most common frequency of electrical supply in North, Central and South America, and is referred to in R. Murray Schafer’s The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World as the “keynote” of modern urbanity: an ever-present acoustic presence generated by electricity flowing through the network of machines and technologies woven into the fabric of our built environment.
Excerpt from Imaginary Landscapes 2018 (Hamilton, Ontario)
Full-length performance (Audio recording and visualization)