Nik ForrestWild Intimacy
Nik Forrest, View of the piece Picture for Listening presented as part of Faire des histoires, VOX – Centre de l’image contemporaine, 2015. Photo: Paul Litherland
What is the nature of our perceptual contact with the world, and how do we attune to our shared environment? Since 2010, my creative practice has explored ways to bring into awareness that which is ordinarily imperceptible. The title for the work at OBORO, Wild Intimacy, refers to the unpredictable relations between light and sound that proliferate throughout the ecology of the installation.
Light emanates out from the screen to touch the sound, and sound moves around the space sometimes appearing to come from the image, sometimes from other sources that reach back towards the image. The projected image hovers on the wall like a floating screen, not fully fixed in one position.
The abstract light images in the video are produced with a modified DSLR camera that allows light to leak in. Environmental, atmospheric and ambient sound is recorded on location with the images, processed in studio and mixed with electronic and mechanical sounds captured through a contact microphone attached to the outside of the camera. The modified camera is a leaky object: sound leaks out and light leaks in – not what you would normally want to happen – but in this case, failures of normative process are productive. The camera is not a separate, discreet recording device, but part of the overall sonic – light environment. Made permeable, the camera doesn’t simply record what is external to it, but is vulnerable to a transformative intimacy with its surroundings. Its discrete “sensory functions” are subject to contagion: it sees “differently” than a camera should, the audience hears the camera mixed with very low frequency (VLF) environmental audio. The resulting installation will feature layers of moving abstract light images that intimate narrative flow and a layered, processed sound track, which together produce unpredictable proliferating connections, relations and intimacies.
Nik Forrest, View of the piece Picture for Listening presented as part of Faire des histoires, VOX – Centre de l’image contemporaine, 2015. Photo: Paul Litherland
Nik Forrest is a visual and media artist, born in Edinburgh and based in Montreal. Their practice includes drawing, installation, and sound. They are best known for their short experimental videos which have shown at festivals, galleries, and museums throughout North America and Europe.
Interview by ffiles radio with Edinburgh-born, Montreal-based visual & media artist Nik Forrest leading up to their Wild Intimacy exhibition at OBORO for POP Montreal. Their practice includes drawing, installation, and sound.