VEN VOISEY: NO NOUMENON

Ven Voisey is a sound artist and sculptor from Oakland, CA. His multi-sensory performances, objects and structures seek out transcendent and transformative possibilities amidst the familiar. "No Noumenon" is a choral work for disembodied voice amplified through an spacially-arranged array of utilitarian bullhorn loudspeakers. These are all accompanied by improvised nomadic vocalizations; some moments awkward and disarming, others disorientingly angelic.

The piece uses live and recorded vocals amplified through an array of bullhorn speakers to create a layered composition that is in conversation with the multi-part music for choirs that would have historically been performed in the former church that houses Epsilon Spires. The sound sculpture can be experienced before the performance during the gallery walk.

“Throughout my work I find myself continually trying to build church or hold mass, not in worship or glorification of a specific entity, but as an interface with the unknowable through familiar, clunky, awkward, human means,” says Voisey, who grew up as an altar boy and choir member in the Catholic church. He says that his religious upbringing is “in there deep, and I roll with it, which has me continually fascinated with ritual, space-making, and architecture, as well as structures of power, control, and resistance.”

The sonic design of bullhorns flattens the frequencies of voices in exchange for projecting them as far as possible, which is ideal for situations where commands are being given. In “No Noumenon,” Voisey subverts this expectation by using them to amplify what he describes as “hesitations, caught breaths, and nervous dry mouth” before working up to full-voiced tones that move between harmony and dissonance. The choice to use bullhorns in the performance instead of regular speakers also reflects how “they are often used in circumstances of direction and control,” says Voisey, adding that they “dislocate the voice from the body, and change the relationship of the listener to the voice.”

Voisey, who is a member of the Board of Directors of Epsilon Spires, received a BA from San Francisco State University in a self-designed major combining humanities, electronic music, film, and conceptual art. He has been awarded the Individual Artist grant from the Local Cultural Council of Northern Berkshire, a fellowship at the Roswell Artist in Residence Program in Roswell, New Mexico, and was selected for the 2012 deCordova Biennial at deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park.

This special performance of “No Noumenon” is free to the public, and will take place during the current exhibition of Jude Danielson’s “Unseen Rhythms,” featuring textile works that explore the meeting point between pure color perception and recognizable form in large-scale quilt interpretations of pixelated photographs. 

The pieces in “Unseen Rhythms” are available for purchase in a silent auction held throughout the duration of the exhibit.