mixed media 2-channel installation with one random script DVD with audio
Documentary and experimental strategies are blurred within a sculptural installation to convey an autobiographical struggle with otology and an interest in synesthesia, the neurological condition where a subject confuses one sense for another, i.e. hearing architecture. While the title of the work is directly related to the my own recovery from a procedure to heal a hole in my eardrum (tympanoplasty), the installation’s content envelopes an array of concerns stemming from the recognition that in the case of a sense altering physiological event one is extremely reminded of their own subjectivity. The sound, a series of various frequencies punctuated by silence, is the expression of an internal noise, tinnitus, a phantom auditory perception. The condition is a constant ringing in one’s head connected to no external correspondence and often the result of trauma to the auditory nerves and/or an effect of gradual hearing loss. In Summer of Tympanoplasty, both sculptural and media elements are used as a way to convey the complexities and connections between acoustic and spatial comprehension.
