We are a Pattern
Hirshhorn Museum - Sound Scene 2025
“We are a Pattern” was exhibited at the Smithsonian’s Hirshorn Museum as part of Sound Scene Fest 2025.
The installation consisted of a music box which controlled a simulation a living, moving town. The interface for its drift was the graphic score that the audience could touch and distort. This piece in many ways was a continuation of a long standing series on graphic scores, conveyor belts and feedback loops (See Repetition in Error in Repetition, Schizoposting, Cartoon Blood, DollarStore Ouroboros).
Below is a short video documentary - exploring the installation in full:
This piece saught to create a system that recontextualized the group of people interacting with it as one system - as one pattern. Due to the fact that the means of interacting with it was limited, and that any real change in the system would have to be something collectively achieved by the effort of the entire group - my hope was that the emphasis would fall off the individual and more on a system of experience.
In previous projects I was really obsessed with the idea of exploring “Perpetual Abstraction” as a means of evading the typical, dualistic - subject object relationship with a piece. This piece utilized the same “shifting perspective” as a way to try and do the same thing.
Each of the assets in the world was custom created by me. I loved leaning into the glitchy nasty digital lo-fi style. These are all digital assets, they live in a computer- DO NOT FORGET THIS.
There is also a tele-communication aspect of this exhibit. I love the idea of there being multiple points of entry to any work that I create, so - many of the businesses in this world have thier own numbers. You can call people in this world and here from them in real time. To hear them please Call:
1 (816) 542 6844
The process for fabricating this piece was an initial render in blender to understand the form factor of this exhibit. A TON of prototyping to figure out the best way to get this program to work (MaxMSP, Pure Data, P5.js) and once I had created a working prototype I dove into the unity production and the physical fabrication.
Physical fabrication took place first in fusion 360 where I was able to figure out the precise dimensions for what I wanted to create, then I fabricated each of the cabinets myself.
