UCLA DMA SOLO EXHIBITION

Isaac Ruder. , website.

Infrared Love is a new sound work that oscillates between spoken word narration, a delicate whisper, nonbinary pitchshifting, and an experimental soundscape. Intimacy interfaces with the digital in a search for a new lens to view the world. Anxieties of living under lockdown, persistent surveillance, and environmental catastrophe bubble to the surface. Has technology failed us on some levels? How can we process these feelings?

Headphones are recommended. Close your eyes and take a break from your screen.

VOLUME

ARCHIVED DISCUSSION

EMMA AKMAKDJIAN

4/13/21, 5:18 PM

Hi Isaac! Thanks for sharing your work. As I was listening to your piece I thought about tensions, releases, growth, and entropy. I am enjoying this very embodied sense of technology and its physical vs. immaterial existence. I want to know more about how gender, technology, and intimacy are intertwined. Is technology binary or non-binary? It is interesting how we can't trust AI but in the end we ask it to play ASMR sounds. Is this our way of coping with or ignoring the connection between the natural and digital environment? I found the sounds very engaging and immersive and felt like I entered a space that allowed me to disconnect from the screen but focus inward all the while still being connected to digital tech that brought me these sounds.. great work! congrats on your solo show :)

Tiffany

4/13/21, 5:40 PM

This was pretty awesome, I’ve never experienced anything like this before. It’s very unique in a way where you think you can figure out the sounds but it’s so well put together that it all just flows and takes you on a visual trip through sounds. Great job, Isaac!

Peter Lunenfeld

4/13/21, 5:43 PM

Hi Isaac -- Really like the oscillation between pure soundscapes and narration. Am playing it loud in stereo (don't have good headphones handy) and it works well.

Vedashree Bankar

4/13/21, 5:45 PM

Thanks for sharing your piece Isaac!

Your piece took me back to a time in India, one cold night when it was raining hard and the power went off. In India, we were always made aware of the physical nature of electricity because one can see utility poles everywhere - which are busy, entangled with electrical wires. When the power went off that one time, I felt scared because I thought I heard a current. I desperately wanted the power to come back on but also the sound of the current made me painfully aware of the invisibility of being surrounded by the delicate, dangerous, useful fabric of networks that I can’t live without but if I stop and think about it - it creeps me out.

What does it even mean to be human in 2021, stuck in a pandemic without our digital world?

Rebeca Méndez

4/13/21, 6:05 PM

Hola Isaac, powerful work! Complex and dimensional. Somehow I felt my body tumbling in space. Very physical experience.

Congratulations on your show. Abrazo!

AM

4/13/21, 7:12 PM

Listening to your audio exhibition reminded us of living within our blissfully blue pill world of constant gratification and isolation. Scratch that. Impressive piece! Congratulations

Saul Ivan Quintero

4/13/21, 7:26 PM

Ooofff this was NUTS, so much to talk about! The sort of oscillating high pitched sound reminds me a bit of work from onkyokei, the contemporary Japanese genre that explores sound as an invading touch - It's also kinda bizarre trying to make sense of what the foreground and background is in this environment - the onkyokei sounds feel like my body is a space and sound is injected into it, but then you present these crashing waves and binaural spatial cues that transform the sound into an inhabitable space and my body is quickly uprooted and plunged into it like some invading object. I typically associate liminal spaces with respite or calmness or a sort of numbness, but the constant forced-switch between being an object and being a space that your piece conjures feels violent and aggressive.

How you explored intimacy was fascinating - again your voice took on a sort of plural identity. At times it took the shape of an "inner voice" that lends itself back to a sense of personhood - that in and of itself felt somewhat comforting. When the object to space shift propelled me back toward your voice, however, the voice felt invasive like some private recording of myself being played back to me by a hidden observer.

This reminds me a bit of some of the more rhythmic work that Reelle released on Danse Noire or a recent album "Altar" that KAVARI released on aya garden***. You might enjoy some of their work!

I have soo many more thoughts, but for now I'll just say congrats on the wonderful piece!!!

Peales

4/13/21, 7:27 PM

That was MASSIVE! Thanks for the ride!
-jan

Carrie

4/13/21, 8:00 PM

As sounds oscillated in my ears, I felt transported to different spaces and digital dimensions, and experienced flowing thoughts, unexpected visuals and physical sensations! Congrats on your show and this wonderful piece!

Leslie

4/14/21, 11:15 AM

Isaac, the way you were able to pull me into so many spaces, both waves of emotion being created and embodied in my chest to physical sensations, both soothing and discomfiting, radiating through me. I feel like I could dig through the layers you constructed within this for a very long time and always find something new, beautiful, and unsettling. Thanks for this remarkable piece and the journey you've created!

Dasul

4/14/21, 7:54 PM

Congrats, Isaac. This is absolutely inspiring! Love the way your voice changing and mixing with other sounds.

Magdalena Chavez

4/15/21, 12:24 AM

I felt a lot of feelings. I was scared, then relaxed, then stressed, and then at ease again. I also felt like I hear seasons change throughout, I could almost see the rain, the grass, the beach, and maybe even a busy street on a summer day? Thanks for sharing!

Arin

4/15/21, 6:47 AM

Isaac, it was a lovely experience -- synthesized and poetic. Fan turns and says hello. Thank you.

Nikita Gale

4/15/21, 3:58 PM

Bravo!

whlucas

4/20/21, 9:24 PM

It was so nice seeing this piece develop... it really takes you on a journey... well done

sabrina

4/21/21, 6:12 PM

i love this, it kinda reminds me of work from claire rousay.

infrared love is best described as a “museum audio guided tour” trip thru our collective reality.