Studies In Unison explores the idea of sonic consensus. When identical or similar sounds align they reinforce yet compromise each other. Two performers attempting to copy each other spark a negative feedback loop. As a blindfolded amateur choir sings the same note together for one hour the pitch bends, swoops and disintegrates. Without a clear reference point the differences between bodies – their proximity, communicative precision and physical limits – become apparent.
Sydney-based artist Julian Day has investigated this concept through a body of installation, performance and video. His ongoing collaborative project Super Critical Mass (with Luke Jaaniste and Janet McKay) brings together temporary communities of participants who disperse identical sound throughout public places, creating situations of dynamic spatial ambiguity. Similarly his project An Infinity Room matches identical synthesizers within different spaces to generate aural ‘rooms within rooms’, filling the airspace with complex drones like a sonic ‘ganzfeld’ of unchanging information.Studies In Unison features recent work in this arc created during a residency at bb15 in Linz, Austria.