by Gene Mastrangeli

The concept for this work stemmed from the mythical notion that when putting your ear in front of the opening of a sea shell, one can hear the “watery” home from which it came. I found this idea poetic on various levels and the process of amplifying this sound became a catalyst for the idea of this audio sculpture. The experiment is an intermittent relationship of oscillating open/closed-circuit audio waves that feedback when the megaphone passes in front of the sea shell.

The phenomenon of audio feedback in this work occurs when the shell opening is placed within close proximity to the microphone end of the megaphone. This incident produces standing sound waves or a closed-circuit between the objects  . . . an audio dia-monologue if you will. The project is to fabricate an apparatus that would regulate the audio relationship between these two different, yet similar objects. This “machine” would control their frequency connection and be either pendulous or rotational/wall or floor mounted depending on the success of varying experiments.

Biography (art/architecture)

I am a Toronto based multi-media artist and aspiring architect. My work reciprocates between concerns of art and architecture. My methodology has become an amalgamation of representational strategies from both of these disciplines. My most recent work has stemmed from explorations with time based media. These video works are non-narrative and deal with simple variables of camera movements and the operational mechanisms within the camera; they are concerned with one’s perception in relation to these operations. The explorations are site specific experiments that have acted as catalysts for design proposals in post-industrial urban spaces along Toronto’s rail corridor grouped under the title “Design in the Void”.

Education/Art/Volunteer/Community

Masters in Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, University of Toronto, 2008.

“Assembling a Molecular Architecture”: project w/ Adrian Blackwell and the community of Mount Dennis, Toronto, 2007.

A founding member of the “Loop” gallery, Toronto, 1999-2002.

Community art projects with street youth and “Open City”, Montreal, 1998.

Bachelors of Fine Art, Concordia University, 1996.