Installation
2017

In Sergei Tcherepnin’s practice sound is often made tactile. His Body Bound Notations: Parade (2015) and Neptune’s Ribbon (2015) are large linen textiles onto which fictional notation patterns are painted, giving the appearance of oversized musical score sheets. Curling brass and oxidized copper forms are attached to the front of these fabric sheets and placed in close proximity to surface transducers, which emit sound specific to each score. When pressed to the surface of these transducers, the metal amplifies the sound significantly, making the music physical and including the viewer in the completion of the 'score'. These score-paintings therefore become instrument-speakers to be activated and 'played' by the viewer, who, in their physical manipulation of the metal shapes can filter the sounds they emit. His new works Yet to be titled: musical lanterns (all 2017) – made especially for the exhibition Why Patterns – consist of a series of wooden boxes covered by silk scrims, through which wires protrude. When touched, these wires emit bursts of light and sound that can be manipulated by the viewer into a rhythmic composition. Inside these boxes are elaborate visual compositions – mini-theaters – made up of photographs, metal, sticks, wires and other ephemera, along with the exposed apparatus itself. Both the Body Bound Notations and the musical lantern-theaters challenged how visitors of Why Patterns could both affect and be affected by sound, dissolving preconceived divisions between artwork and audience and rendering the listening and viewing experience an active process.