Jorinde Voigt – Lemniscate

A lemniscate is the symbol for infinity; a figure 8 that loops forever. Presented in the gallery in the form of an audio file with accompanying text, Jorinde Voigt’s sound installation entitled Lemniscate/∞ animates this concept by expanding upon abstract ideas explored in her drawings. She created the piece in collaboration with composers Patric Catani and Chris Imler as a sonic interpretation of her Matrix series of drawings – an extension of Voigt’s Schwarm series, featuring her visual notations of such intangible and ephemeral concepts as kisses, detonations, speed, and flight, and the positioning of such events in larger courses of action.

At first, Lemniscate/∞ may sound like nothing more than cacophonous noise, but through prolonged listening, the audience becomes aware of their bodies relative to the “sculpture” of sound. Though invisible, the swarm of noise occupies a physical space, somewhere between floor and head height. The rhythmic, looping composition of sound encircles the listener, evoking the circuitous clusters of lines in Voigt’s drawings. In the act of listening, we inhabit a non-representational space that is counterpart to our physical bodies, and is therefore a space that we can access, but never fully occupy. By presenting us with this encounter, Voigt, Imler, and Catani seem to ask the viewer to consider how aesthetic experience can overcome the perceived boundaries of corporeal existence.

Em Green `17