ANDY WEBSTER


LIGHTSHOW DRIVEN BY THE SOUND OF ITS OWN MAKING

Lightshow Driven By The Sound of Its Own Making is an audio-visual installation that reimagines Robert Morris's seminal 1961 work 'Box with the Sound of Its Own Making'.  

While Morris's piece played back recorded construction sounds, this installation with an understated, deadpan twist generates live, real-time sound and light through the circuitous process of its own operation.

Employing an eccentric assortment of vintage and analogue equipment – par can theatre lights, a sound-to-light unit, contact microphones, speakers, and a smoke machine – the work creates a self-sustaining feedback loop. The amplified clanks and buzzes emanating from the ageing lights as they power on and off (sad anachronistic noises of outdated technology) are captured by the microphones and fed back into the sound-to-light unit. This, in turn, triggers the lights to flicker and flash anew in response to the audio input, creating an ever-morphing, percussive light show with an almost improvisational quality.

As the lights and sounds engage in their peculiar call-and-response the works perpetual cycle seems to gently poke fun at itself – simultaneously the source and inherently absurd result of its own existence. Rather than a static piece, the installation offers a generative exploration that embraces Morris's conceptual origins and inherent humour.

The artwork was developed with the support of Auction House, Redruth, UK in 2021.