Through interdisciplinary explorations of sculpture, installation, virtual media, sound, and performance, and participatory work, my work investigates notions of embodiment relative to dichotomized systems and structures. Translating forms of media connectivity to socio-spatial relations, my interest in sensory virtual-scapes draws from my experience of multi-dimensional queerness (gender, identity, and neurodivergence) as it coincides with digital intimacy. Liminal spaces interest me as spaces of discovery, home to constants of change, such as breath, rhythm and tide, and as metaphors for bodies in flux. I evoke an aesthetic of curiosity in my pieces, inviting the viewer to fill an active role through the process of discovery, learning, and listening. Sound especially holds metaphysical potential as a vehicle for memory, emotion, and sensation all simultaneously. As psychosomatic ties to the present, I am interested in how spaces can be sculpted through listening practices and the social and introspective transmissions when sonic bodies are turned inside out.
Sunny Babcock is a neuroqueer artist based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, attending their 4th at NSCAD University. Majoring in Interdisciplinary Art, their work takes form primarily through concept, installation and sound, as well as the expansive intermingling of various media. They have exhibited and worked in various artistic capacities and events produced by the NDAC in their hometown of Nelson, BC. While at NSCAD, they co-curated and showcased their work as a part of “Gaiety”, a group exhibition organized by the NSCAD Queer Collective, at the Anna Leonowens Gallery. Additionally, their work has been featured in several group exhibitions for the sculpture and expanded media departments. After completing their BFA, Sunny hopes to continue to work and research in their individual practice as well as education in art therapy.
TUNING IN
Taking the form of a large inverted umbrella, this sound sculpture combines analogue and digital audio to form a dialogue between two sources of sound at Point Pleasant Park. The umbrella, reinforced with steel, fiberglass, and assembled broken umbrellas, acts as a parabolic speaker that reflects and amplifies directional sounds. Installed in the grass near Point Pleasant Battery, the inside of the umbrella faces and reflects the ambient sounds of the distant shipping docks and waves. Additionally, a speaker installed inside the umbrella plays underwater sounds recorded along the rocks of the Northwest Arm, powered by solar panels installed on top of the umbrella. Standing in front of the sculpture, the viewer experiences the combined amplified sounds of ambient industrial machinery in the distance and the textural underwater sounds of waves and rocks captured by the artist. The piece juxtaposes two contexts of listening: one that requires a curiosity and attentiveness to thresholds just out of site and reach, and the other the listener is involuntarily subjected to but which they in turn hold an accountability towards. Housing a dialogue between the digitally captured natural sounds and industrial noises, the umbrella’s whimsical self-referential irony for the misuse of umbrellas in Halifax’s winds references a larger irony of the park as an idealized site for nature and sensory escape (considering its proximity to heavy industry). It also invites the viewer to reflect on their own sensory gatherings and the meaning in sensory privilege of “pleasure” in the context of the park by revealing inverse sides of it.