voice forms was created for the exhibition transmissions from space at the fresno metropolitan museum. the sculptures were made by speaking john glenn’s transmission into a computer and then creating plaster-cloth models based on the soundwave forms based on my own voice, via the computer screen. the models were built from debris in the studio – cardboard, newspaper, plastic water bottles, tape, etc. each is approx. 16″ tall.
here are my original notes: “voice forms are a series of plaster models of my voice speaking the vowel structure of john glenn’s first transmission from space into a computer. i have taken accurate scientific models of the sound waves of my voice, and translated them into objects made by a human. some specific detail elements are lost in the translation process (for i can hardly form an accurate model of a computer rendering with old newspaper, wire, plaster. dowels and studio debris); yet, there my interest is more in the things gained during this process as well how these models “work” when other things are lost. certainly, it is an attempt to use the voice as a model towards the creation of an aesthetic sculptural object that then contains its own voice. again, the vowels determine the structure of the works – the physical structure in this case – the form. again, there are intutitive aesthetic decisions made; and again, the final result is connected to the source material, but has hopefully also flown some distance from it, so that the objects can hold their own meanings apart from their connection to the source. a nice coincidence that these models of voices from space resemble rockets (perhaps not such a coincidence in that as a child i assembled a large number of plastic model kits of rockets and space capsules).” 2004