Sound Art | Mike Hansen Artist

Sound Art

Installations, Sculptures, Objects, Drawings

The Flip, Flop, Ball Change, Shim Sham Scrum 2022, record player, velvet curtains, dvd, dvd player, acrylic sheet

Decipher Semaphore 2022
(An in situ sound or video installation)
Decipher is a series of in situ sound or video installations to discuss issues/ history with a sense of skepticism of place using international languages that avoid utterance.
This version of Decipher will be a video presentation that uses the language of semaphore. Semaphore deciphers the alphabet through the use of flags as communication devise commonly used between boats and ships. The semaphore system conveys information at a distance by means of visual signals with hand-held flags, rods, disks, paddles, or occasionally bare or gloved hands. This proposal will use flags. Information is encoded by the position of the flags; it is read when the flag is in a fixed position.

Decipher (Morse Code) 2022

(An in situ sound installation)
Decipher is the first of a series of in situ sound installations, that is using my studio building in this instance, to discuss issues using international languages that avoid utterance.
The in situ sound installation, Decipher, -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . ,uses the language of Morse code, a non-verbal language to transmit short messages, to audibly examine the history of the building where it is installed.

Paradox Box Set 2019
(a study in musique concréte)

Paradox is a five-record handcrafted box set in a limited edition of 10. Each box set contains four hand-cast playable concrete stereo 10”, 33rpm singles and one hand- lathed vinyl 10” stereo EP of all four compositions- Paradox 1-4.

Rock and a Hard Place 2019 (digital study)

Rock and a Hard Place is a participatory sound installation that compels participants to pass through a throng of live electric guitars. This is a reflection of my experiences of crowded spaces. Rock and a Hard Place shares with the participant my own ordeals of the physical interactions in a crush of people that is found in locations such as: busy streets, public transit and shopping malls, Instead of the inevitable frustration found in these situations my sound installation creates music.
Each guitar is attached to both an effects pedal (delay or fuzz or distortion, etc.) and a amplifier (as illustrated in this digital study). The instruments are suspended from the ceiling of the location by large springs. The springs allow the guitars to move freely as people walk through them. When the participant’s make contact with the guitars, the instruments react to this interaction causing them to bounce, tap the participant as well as each other causing a noise backlash, bringing fourth my own under the breath curses from my encounters with others in overcrowded locations. .
The Rock and a Hard Place installation’s guitars are to be placed closely together in a thru fare that viewers must pass through to reach another location. As they pass through this multitude of guitars participates are forced to interact with the instruments creating accidental, improvised compositions that continually vary as others walk through. The sounds escalate as the guitars bounce, swing and vibrate from the contact.
The crush of the crowd is an experience that can be said is an everyday occurrence. The crowd can also be a metaphor for life’s trials where these experiences forces each of us to deal with the situations that surround as well as the everyday tribulations. Rock and a Hard Place generates empathetic communication between participants creating a site of self-examination as well as collective relations.

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Silence 2017

Silence examines sound through a medium that is designed to store sound. Using three blank vinyl records, Silence reverses the medium of the record album through the exploration of the idea of the sounds between the sounds, silence.

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The Unknowing Self 2016 (Life Sized Screen Installation Proposal)

Whispher 2015 (installation view)
(The Humble Inquiry Series)

Whisper, examines the love song as a an intimate conversation, which in most instances is designed to go public. This photographic installation takes away the voice of the conversation instead seeing the love song as a contemplative expression through images of the conversations creation.

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Itch Record Rubbings 2017

Itch rubbings use records that particpants played and manipulated during the 2016 Toronto Nuit Blanche installation of Itch. The rubbing show how the records have been manipulated by the particpants during thier performance. An interesting artifact from a exhibit of ephemeral sounds.

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Mike Hansen Art 2022