AUDIO CHANDELIER multichannel works. Sounds are “pixelated” into individual grains of sound as they are dispersed to 8-16 speakers throughout a gallery and altered using granular synthesis to illuminate and refract moments in time. Since 2010, Dafna Naphtali has created many multi-channel Audio Chandelier performances, fixed media and interactive installations, and sound-sculpture, and ensemble pieces for laptop orchestra, smartphones, presented internationally and around the US.
Audio Chandelier: Polyélaios, an multichannel kinetic speaker sculpture she created in collaboration with master metalsmith/designer Ayala Naphtali (Dafna’s sister). The work was exhibited on Governors Island in New York City May-August 2021 presented by Harvestworks Digital Media Arts with over 2400 visitors. Audio Chandelier: Polyélaios was also installed at the 2021 Adorn Axis pop-up show in Chelsea, New York, as part of Jewelry Week, and in 2023 at Bushwick Open Studios in Ayala Naphtali’s Brooklyn studio.
Find Audio Chandelier on social media: Instagram, Twitter, more information here.
*****More about the Audio Chandelier multi-channel projects:
In each of her Audio Chandelier pieces, Naphtali has created, field recordings, and live audio, are sound-processed as one “grain” is sent to each speaker available, in a “point source” conception (not virtual sound, but rather treating each speaker as an instrument / sound-maker.). Naphtali manipulates these grains of sound as they remain static in each speaker. The result is a surprising array of evolving soundscapes/ environments are created — from shimmering motion to reverberant spaces, to low crashing waves, to hyper-electronics refraction of sound.
******timeline of works and documentation of past performances and activities below******
AUDIO CHANDELIER: POLYÉLAIOS (2021) kinetic audio sculpture in conjunction and collaboration with metalsmith and designer Ayala Naphtali. Shown summer 2021 on Governors Island in Nolan Park Building 10a, presented by Harvestworks Digital Media Arts, with over 2400 visitors! Also at Fall 2021, show at the Adorn Axis pop-up show in Chelsea, New York, as part of Jewelry Week. Future locations for the installation now coming soon!
CT: SWaM podcast “Broadband Echoes” Episode 3 is an interview with Dafna about Audio Chandelier past projects and upcoming work (Summer 2020). https://ctswam.org/
Audio Chandelier: Remainders, originally created as a live performance for the Residual Noise Conference (March 2020), and re-imagined as an online presentation at the rescheduled virtual conference in October 2020. Link to the piece and full concert is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec_UYZu-ios&t=3040s
AUDIO CHANDELIER: LATITUDE (2017)
32-channel site-specific work created for the Satosphère dome at Société des Artes Technologique (SAT), premiering in Montreal, June 2nd 2017 at iX Symposium: Embodied Spaces.
Audio Chandelier: Latitude, premiered in Montreal, June 2nd 2017 at iX Symposium: Embodied Spaces. (Photos ©SebastienRoy.ca)
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Performances/presentations have at Reverse Space Gallery (2013 curated by Stephan Moore), FAMU (film music school) Prague, at Subtropics/12 nights festival in Miami, and the Hochschule for Theater und Musik Hamburg (with their Wavefield Synthesis), and at Stanford University CCRMA in 2019.
with Issue Project Room’s multichannel sound system in 2010
AUDIO CHANDELIER: BUBBLES (2015)
USAP production in Berlin’s “12 Bubbles festival”– a 12-channel installation of manipulated bubble sounds. Two-channel mock-up of the piece here. https://www.facebook.com/events/172563709760983/
AUDIO CHANDELIER: FIELD (2014)
12 channel installation for a solar powered multi-channel system created for USAP (Urban Solar Audio Plant) in Berlin — presented at Templehof and other locations over 9 days in 2014 https://vimeo.com/100721690
AUDIO CHANDELIER: FRY (2013) was included in the 60×60 Surround Sound Mix, 1 minute, extended vocal sounds.
related projects include:
AUDIO CHANDELIER: TILT (2013) for laptop orchestra was premiered by PLOrk (Princeton Laptop Orchestra) and by my NYU laptop orchestra in New York. Here’s the AP report broadcast worldwide on PLOrk including Audio Chandelier.
short video clip from the concert here: https://vimeo.com/65255309#t=46s
AUDIO CHANDELIER: CUTUPS (2015 and continuing work-in-progress) for 6+ users of Dan Iglesia’s MobMuPlat cellphone app to process/perform cutup samples of William S. Burroughs discussing his cutup technique. Originally commissioned for an (unofficial) cellphone ensemble of Google employees.
AUDIO CHANDELIER: GRAINS the first work, and concept was presented in performance Floating Points Festival (2006, & 2010 -curated by Stephan Moore) and in a residency at Diapason Gallery (Michael Schumacher) in NY in 2010.
Other early, related multi-channel audio pieces by Dafna Naphtali:
Haas (2010) is a set of interrelated multi-channel compositions and studies in aural oddities/illusions, based on human and avian vocal gestures are partnered with more abstract work based on electronic impulses as the routing and movement of the sound sources create illusions of rhythm and pitch and the room seems to become a synthesizer. Additional vocal samples are bass/baritone Robert Osborne and members of Magic Names.
Wheezer – 2001, 2005 – originally created during live performance & commission from Engine 27 (a 16- channel sound gallery in NY). Later mixed it down to 5.1 surround, and presented with “Harvestworks 5.1 Workspace projects” installation NY/Bulgaria/Germany.
The work was first inspired/influenced by my two years as a resident programmer for artists in residence at Engine 27 (2001-2003), a multi-channel sound gallery in lower Manhattan– along with Michael Schumacher, Luke Dubois, Matthew Ostrowski, Eric Rosenzweig (director) and owned by Jack Weiss. It was a formative time for me, when I worked with many many artists toward realizing their sound installations including: Henry Threadgill, Jim Staley, Chico Freeman, Cheryl Leonard,Joe Diebes,Leopanar Witlarge, Chris Delaurenti, Steve Coleman, Jim O’Rourke and others).
After that time, I had performances at Issue Project Room (then off the Gowanus Canal), with loving support and encouragement from director Suzanne Fiol, who allowed me to work with their newly installed 15-channel sound system of hemisphere speakers designed by Stephan Moore, who later invited me to be a part of his first Floating Points Festival (and also in 2010). In the first ISSUE project room performance I presented a multi-channel version of my 1995 piece Lamentations created from multilingual recordings and field recordings from and about Jerusalem.
Spring 2015, I was invited to help form the a short-lived Sound Research group at Eyebeam, together with Wolfgang Gil (coordinator), Seth Cluett, Michael Schumacher, Terence Caulkins (of Arup), and Marko Tandefeldt (Tech director of Eyebeam). Since then I have also found community among like-minded multichannel audio sound artists at CT::SWaM run by Daniel Neumann and other initiatives.