With a nod to Fluxus game works and Natalie Jermenjenko, "Cubic Conversation" is a small-scale interactive sound artwork that consists of five 2.125’ x 2.125” stainless steel cubes. The participant is able to record up to 20 seconds of their voice into the cube recording device. Subsequently, it allows for two different playback behaviors: (1) one time and (2) looping. Each behavior is triggered by photosensors that switch when placed against the ground; the behaviors are signified by graphics etched into the sides of the cubes.

The affect in a social or musical sense is to allow participants to create “rounds” that consist of the overlay of up to five sounds or voices created by the current participant or the past participants or a combination of the past and present participants.

Embedded technologies precisely engage questions about originality that encourages the idea of “platform development” within the realm of ideas being examined by many. The nuances of the packaging, behaviors and object quality directly engage questions inherent to the technology. Our intent with the work is to examine the intentional act of displacing ones voice into an intimate and crafted minimal object. How do individuals choose to supplement, overlay or erase the history of others’ voices? To what degree do individuals use other’s voices as sources v. choosing to obliterate them? Do individual’s make choices in this realm guided by the compositional poetics of overlaying sounds? Finally, what affect does the crafting of a palm-sized object of deliberate minimal beauty have on the practice of interacting with the object? Is some sense of musical or theatrical composition invoked?

Collaboration with Rolf Van Widenfelt. Copyright ©2002 Steve Appleton and Rolf Von Widenfelt, All Rights Reserved