Drumming Displaced into Different Sized Jam Jars is a kinetic sound sculpture. The boxes’ interiors are lined with egg cartons, lead and plasticine layers to soundproof and create an ideal sound recording space. Inside is a stripped down mechanical drumming toy, observable through a viewing window on the top of the soundproof box. Each toy has a microphone strapped to its arm, picking up the sound of the toy’s motor, gears and drum tapping. The sound from each microphone is heard through four small speakers positioned beneath glass jars directly in front of the soundproof box. The jars act as resonating chambers, varying and complicating the speaker tone based on the size of the jar and the distance above the speaker. Each toy’s drumming speed is controlled by its own seemingly random computer programme, varying the pace from a stationary position to rapid drumming.
Exhibition History: 1999 Women’s Art Resource Centre (W.A.R.C) (part of “The Music 4 Eye and Ear, International Sound Sculpture Festival and Symposium”) (Toronto, Canada); 1999 La Centrale (Montreal, Canada); 1999 Blackwood Gallery (Mississauga, Canada)
Press: Bradley, Jessica. “On James Carl and Building a Public Collection.” Canadian Art, Winter, 2001, pp. 73-75.
Eden, Xandra, Barbara Fischer and Nancy Campbell. Marla Hlady. The Power Plant, 2001.
Fischer, Barbara. “Drumming Displaced into Different Sized Jam Jars.” Noisemaker(s). Blackwood Gallery, 2001, pp. 30-31
MacKay, Gillian. “Popular Mechanics.” The Globe and Mail, 4 November, 2000.
