A low rumble of a freight train or the colliding of steel on a container ship occurs in a layered reality at The Anteroom, an artist-run space in Port Chalmers. Three recent works by Charlotte Parallel make up Ecologies of Transduction that aptly culminate a careful trajectory of geo-specific sound maps from Venice, The Auckland Volcanic Plateau and Koputai/Port Chalmers.
Entering the dimmed space of The Anteroom, the high gabled ceiling, tiered wooden floors and iconic blue window bring its own architectural atmosphere to the exhibition. The former Masonic Lodge commands its own idea of an art space, one that differs to a traditional white cube gallery. The Anteroom caters for a diverse exhibition practice such as performance, sound and cinema works. Parallel’s work is no different. A precise selection of spotlights illuminates three works each displayed to custom matte black metal trolleys. The works are not shown in a line or a triptych but as a conversational series of three creating their own narrative.
Parallel’s work Data Processing System: A Sonic Cartography of Venice (2015) was first shown as a collateral event with Nine Dragon Heads at the 2015 Venice Biennale and created specifically for the exhibition Jump into the Unknown. The work features four black tool cases, lying flat with lids open, facing back to back. Each case is fitted with a cartographic map printed to a clear plastic surface. Black buttons are placed like geo-markers and when pressed activate an audio recording from the said location. Each autonomous sound map plays together as the viewer activates their own endless composition that collide and harmonize. Each sound layer presents an unknown or forgotten moment, many recorded underwater with a hydrophone in the canals of Venice or transduced from a solar panel to an audible format.
Monogenetic Field: The Auckland Volcanic Plateau (2016) is a work based on Geo Net seismographic data again transduced to an audio format. The electronic components to this work are encased in a black tool case similar to A Sonic Cartography of Venice, both these works speak a mobile art practice, one that could board a plane, although at severe risk of causing a bomb scare. These works expose careful electronic wiring from servos to speakers and buttons offering a “finer attunement to a given place” yet also appear questionable to a home-made bomb. Parallel’s field-recording process attracts attention that differs from day to night, both of intrigue or unease. Recording with either an underwater hydrophone, solar panel on a pole, complete with a backpack of recording devices and battery packs, attention comes and a spectacle of interest or caution.
Koputai/ Port Chalmers (2016) maps the artist’s local sounds. From the railway lines in earshot from the gallery, fish feeding in Carey’s Bay, the depths of the harbour where boats dredge the sea floor to a soft flickering ornament, in the wind on a grave stone. Parallel brings to the surface the foreign, familiar and unseeable, each presenting an intimate experience with location, data and delivery.