Installation Behind the Scenes:
Thessia Machado
"int. timeslip, a song for structural comfort"

May 2023

video + sound

 

Behind the Scenes on the Installation of Thessia Machado's "int: timeslip, a song for structural comfort"

Location: Gary R. Libby University Gallery at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL

Installation Date: May 22-23rd, 2023

 

Goswami documented the installation of Thessia Machado's "int: time slip, a song for structural comfort" for Gary R. Libby's University Gallery’s Summer B 2023 exhibition, Sound-Sites in the Age of Utopian Recoverism: Art, Technology, and Exhibition Practices. Machado's organization and structure exemplify how it does not have to be intimidating to create, install, and view sensors and electronics-based art. Not only the organization and structure but the ability to adapt to the work's needs is pertinent. Check out the process that went into installing Machado's work through Goswami's view.

 

Thessia Machado is a visual/sound artist, instrument builder, and performer whose work plumbs the materiality of sound and its effect on our shifting perceptions of space. She creates circumstances in which to mine the matter of her pieces for their innate physical properties and the sonic and visual relationships that can arise from their interactions. Electronics are usually involved. According to Machado, "int.: time slip" is “an architectural lullaby. Two wall-mounted instruments react to light and vibrate the space itself with the sounds produced by bass and guitar strings.”

 

“The video that functions as a score is made from video and time-lapse footage of sunlight patterns from windows/blinds on walls. As the light shapes travel and animate across the wall, they pass over the light sensors activating the different strings/notes from the instruments.” For Machado, her installation is a way to reflect on how “[i]n the last few years, the few rooms that most of us can call home had to perform many new roles. [A] safe haven, shelter, protective bubble, sanitized respite, the structural components that make a home now had to embody other types of expectations and interactions" (Machado, 2022).

 

This work was originally commissioned by the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) and was part of the exhibition "A parallel (r)evolution — Digital Art in Latin America" for the Ars Electronica Festival 2022 at the Lentos Art Museum in Linz.

 

Director + Editor + Sound + Video: Komal Goswami

Artist Featured: Thessia Machado

Artwork Title: "int.: timeslip, a song for structural comfort"

Courtesy: Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation

Courtesy: University Galleries - University of Florida

Director + Curator: Jesús Fuenmayor

Exhibition Coordinator: Jorge Bernal

Exhibition Installation Assistance: Gabriel de la Torre