In Silence …
Joel Ong
Joel Ong’s installation, In Silence …, takes a selection of anecdotal stories abstracted from interviews with individuals at medical, ecological, and socio-cultural frontlines, and “narrates” them through actors limited to non-vocal expressions. A reflecting pool reveals patterns that alternate between emergence and disappearance in synchrony with the story’s emotional valences and as cymatic visualizations of speech. The audio for these stories is accessible through a bone-conductance railing nearby, audible through touch. Ong’s work pays tribute to the resilience of these frontline communities through emotional turmoil and uncertainty that has made them feel they were in a perpetual suspension and immobility. This iteration of In Silence at the UCLA Art Sci Gallery also features two survivor testimonials from the Climate Disaster Project (https://climatedisasterproject.com/stories-archive/).
Opening on Friday, April 4: 2:00 – 5:00 PM
Location: CNSI Lobby and Art Sci Gallery, 5th Floor of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI)
570 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095
Parking: Parking Structure 9
675 Charles E Young Dr S, Los Angeles, CA 90095
Navigation: After parking, proceed to the top floor of the structure. Take the gangway along the north side of the lot, then navigate around the CNSI building to its east entrance on the 3rd floor. From there, you can access the lobby and the Art Sci Gallery on the 5th floor.
>>Exhibition Dates:
APR 04 - APR 25, 2025
Hours:
Thursday & Friday: 2:00 – 5:00 PM
More info:
https://soundofatmosphere.com
Joel Ong is a media artist whose works connect scientific and artistic approaches to the environment, particularly with respect to sound and physical space. Ong’s work explores the way objects and spaces can function as repositories of ‘frozen sound’, and in elucidating these, he is interested in creating what systems theorist Jack Burnham (1968) refers to as “art (that) does not reside in material entities, but in relations between people and between people and the components of their environment”. A serial collaborator, Ong is invested in the broader scope of Art-Science collaborations and is engaged constantly in the discourses and processes that facilitate viewing these two polemical disciplines on similar ground. His graduate interdisciplinary work in nanotechnology and sound was conducted at SymbioticA, the Center of Excellence for Biological Arts at the University of Western Australia. Ong is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Computational Arts and Helen Carswell Chair in Community Engaged Research in the Arts at York University in Toronto. From 2019-23 he was the Director of Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology.