Lenna

An exclusively audio-based work employing the artist’s own voice, and produced in 22.2 surround sound, Lenna encourages in listeners an awareness not only of its reproduced sound but of the space in which it reverberates as well. In its permittance of secondary use as a sound source for multichannel sampling through Creative Commons, the work also features an aim to stimulate discussion and implementation in regard to the listening environment. Based on the concept of leveraging properties of different spaces using the same sound source, this work was created from the composition through recording stages predicated on omnidirectional playback. It has already been exhibited at ICC’s closed-off anechoic chamber (2 ch), YCAM’s expansive gallery (22.2 ch) and a movie theater (9 ch). The work’s title is derived from the portrait “Lenna,” used as a test image in image processing.

Lenna consists of an acoustic playback system making full use of the 22.2 multichannel format. Having been tried out in different adaptations, ranging from installations in an anechoic chamber and a public space inside an art center, on to a CD version as well, it can be appreciated that the work also encompasses and raises a philosophical consideration: What would currently constitute an unprecedented new type of acoustic space? It is through the convergence on equal footing of its components—from the complex, multilayer recording of the artist’s own voice to the multiple layers of processing, scoring and the installation’s artificial acoustic design—that the piece first takes form. There is something admirable about the fastidiousness that this artist, only in her 20s, has employed to manage the piece’s production. Moreover, the light touch of her “voice = sound” approach brims with future-oriented pop sensibility and tactility. (ABE Kazunao)