Studio XX is pleased to welcome artist Erin Sexton between September 10th and November 2nd, 2012.
For her residency at Studio XX this fall, Erin Sexton will create a multi-channel a/v installation entitled “crystalline domain”. As a young girl she collected crystals, rocks, and gems, spending much time imagining all the kinds of mystical powers that they might hold.
Her first electronics project was a crystal radio, which uses a crystal diode to separate the audio signal from the carrier wave. Crystal oscillators use the geometric crystalline structure as a natural resonator, feeding its fundamental resonant frequency back into itself to generate tones. Crystals are aesthetically beautiful, conceptually mysterious, and brilliantly display the emergent and self-organizing properties of the universe.
She will grow crystals from various readily available substances, such as sugar, salt, copper sulfate, and borax. Walking the line between personal ritual and scientific experiment, she will improvise and explore the crystallization process using different techniques and materials, documenting the entire process in video and sound. Crystals growing on amplified surfaces, colorful super saturated solutions, bubbling and stirring, shiny complex structures… she will also involve the crystals in amplifier and oscillator circuits, running current through them, growing them on antennae, creating actual and imaginary machines alike.
With these tactile open circuits she will record several sound improvisations, her body’s capacitance also modulating the signals, generating rich drones and unexpected feedback loops. She will further involve her body in the work through several video performances, focusing on slowing down movement to the scale of nature, building a strong rapport with these crystalline forms, reflecting on subjectivity and perception, creating a visceral link between the human, matter, energy, and the micro-macro cosmos.