Hello friends! After a long break, it’s finally time to get started with season 4 of Cross Pollination. My guests today were Stephanie Castonguay & Mariska de Groot and it was a really fun conversation! Stephanie came to iii from October to November 2023 as part of the residency exchange program with Perte de Signal in Montreal and Mariska has been an iii member since 2013.
Intrigued by the phenomena and history of optical sound, Mariska de Groot (1982, NL) makes and performs comprehensive analog light-to-sound instruments and installations which explore this principle in new ways. Her work often has a reference to media inventions from the past, with which she aims to excite a multi-sensorial and phenomenological experiences in light, sound, movement, and space. Mariska obtained her BA in graphic design in Arnhem (2000-2005) and received her master's diploma at the ArtScience interfaculty in 2012. She has now presented her work at several national and international events
Fueled by an insatiable curiosity for experimentation, Stephanie’s artistic journey explores sound matter through installation, performance, experimental electronic instrument making, and composition. Rooted in materiality and process, she transforms discarded machines into vessels of resonance, glitches, and latent sonorities. By translating the nuances of the sensory world, her work seeks to unveil the hidden facets of our subtle environment, bridging the realms of perception and the imperceptible. During her residency, Stephanie worked on “liminal.synthesis” which delves into the materiality of light and sound, refining energy transduction to convert light into audible phenomena.
We talk about DIY culture, the fear of failure, reimagining objects, connecting light and sound, and more. Listen on to hear more about failure as a choice, new ways to use your grandmother’s lace or crochet, and what objects they want to reimagine next!
Stephanie Castonguay - https://www.stephaniecastonguay.com/
Mariska de Groot - https://www.mariskadegroot.com/
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iii is an artist run, community platform supporting new interdisciplinary practices linking performance, technology and the human senses. Arising from the ArtScience tradition of The Hague, iii strives to balance technological innovation, theoretical reflection and human experience. iii contributes to international developments in the field of Art, Science & Technology, functioning both as a cultural incubator supporting research and creation, and as an agency connecting creators to a broad audience via a wide (inter)national partner network.
https://instrumentinventors.org/
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The transition music in this episode is by Stephanie Castonguay and the title of this version is “Philter”. In its original version, the sound piece is separated into 4 soundtracks. During the exhibition, each soundtrack was translated into light waves (in the glass/light installation presented at Flipchart). Visitors wore headphones connected to a circuit with an amplified solar sensor which translated light into sound. In this way, you could recreate your own soundtrack by moving the sensors near the lights.