Held Down, Expanding is a 14.2 channel sound installation for one person to experience at a time in pitch-black. It premiered at MONA FOMA 2018, followed by showings at Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne (pictured) in Liquid Architecture’s Polyphonic Social program and Booktown Festival in Clunes.
“The idea of surfaces disappeared and I existed somewhere in a mist of vibrations. They were comforting, surrounding, my weight existed within it. Something in the back of my thoughts was changing and shifting, healing a little, being arranged into a shape that made more sense, that could be understood and integrated.”
Audience Journal
The sound experience is bracketed by reading and written reflection as follows:
Beginning in a waiting area, the audience member is instructed by the work’s minder/operator to read a small, black book of concrete poetry, which alludes to the impact of insidious abuse within intimate relationships and its connection to symptoms of anxiety, depression and so-called mental illness (this same book accompanies Thembi’s Love Songs CD, released on ROOM40, a companion piece to Held Down, Expanding).
Once they have finished reading, the audience member is guided by the work’s operator into a large, black structure and seated within a central recliner chair. The operator enters the structure, latching the door behind them so only a small amount of red light remains. For the audience member, the light becomes so minimal they are barely able to perceive the environment they are within. The operator then raises the audience member’s chair, reclines them, and pulls them back into position between two central speakers – the audience member in a state of complete submission.
The operator switches out the light so the space becomes pitch-black and the sound begins. With nothing to orient them, the audience member becomes lost in an expanding and contracting sound field of perceptual ambiguity, a meditative space and mirror into their own perceptions, emotions and mind.
Once the listening session is complete, audience members are invited to reflect upon their experience and read the reflections of others who have experienced the work before them.
Weightless – in the screeching chair
Heavy – my body a deadweight like the air around me
Objectified – by the clinical feeling of being in a screeching chair (akin to the feeling of waiting for a medical procedure).
Suffocated – as the noise amplified around me, I gasped for air.
Silenced – with all space around me consumed by sound, I couldn’t have made a peep.
YET…
Empowered – like I wanted to push through and prove my strength
Able – Although I felt ‘confined’ to the chair, I felt like swimming up from the depths of the darkness to the light at the top, so I could breathe again.
Thank you for a thoroughly evocative and thought-provoking work!”
hard to remember who I am the feeling of drowning
loss of identity
feeling of fear
emptiness and evacuation
loss of perspective
a coffin
infinity
before and after life
could get addicted
would come again”
I felt a heaviness
and at once a lightness
my legs could not move
I felt the sound move
through my body
My head was full
full of confusing thoughts
My thoughts would not stay
they left before I could catch them
I felt relieved when the
intensity subsided
but then it was replaced
by another form of intensity
My hands became sweaty
when I thought that being
stuck with this intensity
for prolonged periods
might be my reality
At moments my intellect
took over and I enjoyed
thinking about how the
sounds were made
and the extraordinary
experience of being surrounded
by speakers
Bloody love this work!”
A new line of text showing different handwriting that reads, “I had this experience also, if it wasn’t my dad in the room with me I may have felt less comfortable. However, I really appreciated the level of security and safety and comfort given to the audience. It made the artwork able to be experienced in its full potential. I was unsure of my ability to cope with it all but as soon as I was fully immersed in the sound I lost a sense of time, it completely slipped away.
THANK YOU FOR THE EXPERIENCE.”
Intense. Listening so closely that I could hear the attendant breathing. Or was he?
Surprisingly relaxing experience. The anticipation of not knowing what was about to happen was subdued by the warmth of the room. I was expecting it to be far more confronting, but I felt incredibly safe if not a little dissociated. I wish it went for longer.
Wonderfully meditative, enveloped in a mild vibrational sound was, wondering what will happen next… and hoping not to fall asleep…x
weightlessness, formless feeling… anxious sounds. pulled apart and reassembled.
I felt instrumentalised. But was not a problem.
After reading the book I had to actively work to find a place of trust and openness to the experience – plus my (low) anxiety of being in a darkened box. The attendant was relaxed and confident – that helped. I found trust, rested into the seat. and the sound experience. Amazed by the physical presence, movement and location of sound – so tangible as a presence in the space.”
Then the sound was all around me, gently building. The idea of surfaces disappeared and I existed somewhere in a mist of vibrations. They were comforting, surrounding, my weight existed within it. Something in the back of my thoughts was changing and shifting, healing a little, being arranged into a shape that made more sense, that could be understood and integrated.
At first I was holding the torch as if the back of my thoughts might press it at any moment. By the end I had forgotten it existed.“
The sounds were felt, rather than heard in different parts of my head. I didn’t feel unsafe, but I can understand how others might.
There was emotion, rather than thoughts. Not an unpleasant experience, although it will take a little time for the feelings/emotions to clear into coherent thoughts.
An incredibly interesting experience.
Thanks, Tom.”
Held Down, Expanding
An article discussing Held Down, Expanding at MOFO can be found here and a podcast with an interview with Thembi alongside other artists at MOFO here.
Credits
Conceived and created: Thembi Soddell (with sound composed using samples from Alice Hui-Sheng Chang and Jim Denley)
Industrial design: Stuart McFarlane
Thank you: Liquid Architecture, Creative Victoria, Brian Ritchie, Shelley McCuaig, The SUBSTATION, Brad Spolding, Joel Stern, Danni Zuvela, Georgia Hutchinson, Debris Facility, Robin Fox, Byron J Scullin, Jeffery Hannam, Vanessa Godden, Creative Clunes, Richard MacKay-Scollay, Clunes Neighbourhood House and the crew of volunteers in Melbourne and Clunes – Yonke van Geloven, Rebecca H Russell, Sharalyn Rozanski, Esther Grant, Tessa Ambrose, Dave Budge, Stephen Samuel, Jordan Rozanski, Lorna Fitzpatrick, Richard Manning, Rosina Dulloo, Steve Ambrose, Phil Burnie, Mick Sacco, Brittany Wyper, Elena Betros, Darcy Wedd, Jason Hood, Kelvin Lau, Tim Coster, Jessica Pinney, Mikhail Rogachevsky, Thomas Harman, Zac Cooper and Marcel Feillafe.
Held Down, Expanding was supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.