audience participation

May 19, 2026May 30, 2026, by Shana Dumont Garr

Sound Art for the Ecological Turn by EndGrain at SMFA Boston

What can sound art contribute to the ecological turn? When the Taiwanese sound artist Huichun Yang described her process as getting to know the entire life of the tree that became her instrument, she had my attention. The entire creative arc of her process is rooted in reverence toward materials. Yang selects the wood, sculpts it into an arbrosan—an instrument first introduced to the world in 1996—and plays it by directly sensing its surface with her hands, using gestures that evoke repair and tending.

October 22, 2021November 2, 2022, by Art Spiel

Hand Work and wear we are at ELM

Featured Project: with John Morton and Rahul Saggar

Installation in-process, Hand Work and wear we are. Photo by Yumiko Yamazaki

Composer John Morton and Artist/Engineer Rahul Saggar created an audience-activated environment at the boiler space in the ELM Foundation in Williamsburg, inviting visitors to experience a new appreciation of their sonic and spatial surroundings. Visitor’s movements activate a sensor that produces sounds, while their steps simultaneously wear away a walking path on a painted floor surface. The two inter-related installations explore both physical and sonic pathways, uncovering and revealing multiple layers of sound and color, mirroring our everyday meanderings and encounters.

September 3, 2021November 2, 2022, by Art Spiel

Clara Wiest: Exploration Of The Everchanging

In Dialogue with director and creator Clara Wiest

Premier of *Exploration Of The Everchanging*, April 2019 at The New School

The theater work Exploration Of The Everchanging is an experimental interactive theater piece exploring the relationship and dynamic between audience and performer. Clara Wiest created it in 2018 and has directed it in four iterations performed in NY and Denver Fringe two years in a row. Their fourth iteration took place at FiveMyles Gallery in Crown Heights, where it has been adjusted to the gallery space and visitors. Clara Wiest says this work was created out of their love for collaborative processes and their mission to bring humanity back into the rehearsal room and on stage.