Call/Response

Written on June 5th, 2024 by Brandon Woo Snyder

Sound installation with ceramic and arduino. Collaboration with Michelle Chun.

In Call/Response, we thought about bells as instruments of beckoning or calling in–especially in regard to “calls to prayer”. We outfitted 6 ceramic “soundless bells” with mini-speakers hooked to tiny breadboards, which play a 6-channel audio track. The metaphor of a “soundless bell” provokes in us thoughts of unanswered prayers, unspoken desires, and a constant inner calling out to call in–a need for an other. Each bell “pings”, “clinks”, and “roars”, sometimes on their own, sometimes together, and sometimes in a halted, stuttering manner.