Nine translucent triangular panels mounted as a six-pointed star on the gallery wall, the outer panels lit blue and white and the three inner ones red, beside wall text headed TRY and WHAT IS HAPPENING?

01, Portland Art Museum · 2016, 17

Sound Beyond the Auditory

Venue: Portland Art Museum
Dates: Sep 2016 to Feb 2017
Medium: Art Exhibit & Interactive LED Installation
Partner: CymaSpace

Sound Beyond the Auditory Exhibition

Portland Art Museum. Sep 2016 to Feb 2017.

There is a whole other world of sound to explore beyond auditory phenomena.

The objects in this exhibition are experiments in cymatics, the process of making sound visible and tactile. From the mechanically simple to the electronically complex, each takes a different approach. On view were the Electro-Luminous Drum, the Dusic (Deaf Music) Cube, the Vibro-Haptic Apparatus, and the Cymatic Star, a wall of triangular panels that lights up in response to sound in the room. They were composed and fabricated by members of CymaSpace, the Portland nonprofit I founded in 2013 with other artists and technologists who are Deaf or hard of hearing. We work in cymatics so that music can be made and enjoyed by more people.

The exhibition was developed in partnership with CymaSpace. For more on their programs, or how to volunteer, visit cymaspace.org.

The full Cymatic Star on its wall, nine triangular LED panels glowing blue and white around three red center panels, with the instruction panel to the left reading Face the triangles and make a sound

The Electro-Luminous Drum tilted on a stand inside its vitrine, a clear acrylic snare shell banded with copper LED strips and packed with colored wiring, its label reading Myles de Bastion, Electro-Luminous Drum, 2013

The Electro-Luminous Drum seen end-on against a warm tan vitrine wall, the open clear shell revealing vertical copper LED tape, black cables and strips of blue masking tape inside

Gallery corner with the Dusic (Deaf Music) Cube glowing blue in its glass case, a black MUSICIAN panel credited to Myles de Bastion on the wall at left, a DANCER portrait of Scott Selby at right, and the clear drum visible in the case beyond

The Dusic (Deaf Music) Cube alone in its vitrine, a black wooden box whose front panel is a blue-lit tangle of white and pink wires studded with bolts, two speaker cones below and its label on the ledge

The red Portland Art Museum wayfinding sign in the foreground listing Whitsell Auditorium, Education Center and Graphic Arts Galleries, with the lit exhibition cases and a curving chain of green and white LED cubes down the gallery behind it

The row of three lit vitrines along the gallery wall holding the Dusic Cube, the clear drum and the curving LED cube chain, with DANCER and CONNECTOR portrait panels hung between them and the red Object Stories: Sound Beyond the Auditory panel at the far right

The illuminated triangular star glowing green, blue and red on the gallery wall beside the exhibition wall text, a visitor standing in the darkened room opposite

A visitor with cropped hair and glasses looking up close at the triangular panels as they glow blue, green and white

Vibro-Haptic Apparatus in its vitrine, a salvaged timber bench whose seat rests on steel springs above a second wooden platform, with its Feeling Sound label below

Three-quarter view of the Vibro-Haptic Apparatus on its white plinth, four springs on orange and blue rubber feet carrying the upper plank

View through the vitrine glass: the Vibro-Haptic Apparatus in the foreground and, across the wooden gallery floor, a visitor reading the wall text beside the blue-lit triangular star

Next project Jimmy Kimmel Live, Esperanza Spalding