Installations by David Bobier
TRANSCOMMUNICATOR I (Social Model) & TRANSCOMMUNICATOR II (Cultural Model)
The use of codified languages, the bridging of technological devices and the emphasis on the multi- sensory becomes the framework for how the work engages with the audience in a more inclusive way. In exploring the transformation of language and communication from one modality to another the intention is to prompt the reconsideration of multiple senses as channels of communication and exchange.
In this work, David Bobier takes the use of codified languages, the bridging of technological devices, and the emphasis on the multi-sensory as a framework to create a work that engages with the audience in an inclusive way. Two ‘faux’ projection/sound instruments are mounted on individual frames on the wall and their role is to ‘read’ paper scores made of punctured holes. A ‘negative’ braille transcript is thus transformed into modes of sound, vibration and visualization with the aid of a music box, ‘punchable’ music score strips, LED lights and magnifiers.
A wooden object in the form of a ‘hand’ accompanies each piece with small transducers mounted on the ‘fingertips’ of each, encouraging the viewer to place their hand on it, thus experiencing the sound as vibration through their fingertips. Referencing the traditional means of ‘reading’ braille, the work explores the transformation of language and communication from one modality to another and prompts the reconsideration of all the senses as channels of communication and exchange. The viewer is invited to approach each piece, activate the music boxes and experience the sound through the auditory, visual and tactile domains.
Scored in Silence
This work presents a documentation of David Bobier’s performance under the same title, offering the possibility to re-experience the sound from the original performance with the aid of feeling sound belts (provided by the Woodjes Company). The project itself was a collaboration with dancer Chisato Minamimura and relates to the history of the Atomic bomb attacks on Japan in 1945. Their devastating impact is examined through the footage collected recently in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as through conversations with the few remaining deaf ‘hibakushas’- the survivors who witnessed the attacks first hand. Unaware of what was happening in those fateful days, their perspectives and their lives thereafter are now shared for the first time in Scored in Silence.
DAVID BOBIER is a media artist whose creative practice focuses on researching and developing vibrotactile technology as a creative medium. This work led to his establishment of VibraFusionLab (VFL) in London, Ontario, a creative multi-media, multi-sensory centre that has gained a reputation as a leader in accessibility for the Deaf and Disability Arts movement in Canada and abroad. As a practicing artists, he has exhibited in eighteen and over thirty group exhibition projects across Canada and internationally, and his projects have been supported by the leading Canadian institutions and fonds throughout the years. He has received twice Canada Council for the Arts funding for his ongoing research of the Deaf and Disability Arts movement in both the United Kingdom and the United States.
Bobier has served in advisory roles in developing Deaf and Disability Arts Equity programs for both Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council, and was an invited participant, more recently, in The Arts in a Digital World Summit, as well as a panel presenter at the Global Disability Summit in London, UK. Bobier has twice received Canada Council for the Arts funding to do ongoing research of the Deaf and Disability Arts movement in the United Kingdom and the United States.