Daniel o'toole

Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia.

17th Feb — 9th Apr 2023

Voices from the void is an installation of custom-made brass drums that sing when interacted with. The set of drums are tuned to a chord, creating an evolving soundscape that resonates in harmony.

The exhibition features nine drums, displayed as wall hanging objects, that when approached, begin to vibrate and produce a sine wave. The drum skins, painted black, act as a void drawing focus to the sound which is being projected; singing to the audience and harmonising with the other drums, the room becomes an instrument, and the audience the players.

The artist Daniel O’Toole explains, “I am interested in observing how the group may behave in these settings; do people coordinate movements to express particular musical ideas? Will the effect of silence and timing become relevant in how people play this piece? Is there a meditative and quiet atmosphere to the installation, or does it bring out people’s inner child, and become joyous and noisy?”

“With no one present, the drums sit silent, so this work only sings when interacted with…the audience behaviour and exploring different social parameters are just as critical to the artwork as the drums themselves.

VOICES FROM THE VOID – ESSAY 

Written by Ira Ferris, August 2023 

SILENT EFFECTORS 

Their elegant beauty recedes into the background

The seduction of the sound exposed

Not any sound, but that of our making

An enchanting affair 

Even though the instrument is suspended on the wall, elevated to the status of an aesthetic object; once it sounds it fails to be seen.  

Focused on listening and production of sound, we are immersed in the work – the gap between us and the object of the exhibition (or the exhibition as an object), sealed.

While vision as observed by Salome Voegelin “assumes a distance from the object,” listening “embraces the body of the listener”i – we are caught in the net of sound. 

Fleeting and ephemeral, sound is not an object to observe but an evolving process in which to partake. Its transitory nature demands our full attention – what is not perceived will be forever missed.ii While seeing allows for distance and halt, listening depends on active physically embedded participation. In the world dominated by evaluative sight, Daniel O’Toole foregrounds the empathetic body. Our somatic engagement in stark contrast to the stasis of the suspended objects which stable (or stabilised) are unchanging, ongoing, to return to. Their temporal extension allows us to neglect them for now. 

But even if not at the forefront of our attention, the aesthetic beauty of the wall-sculptures (the drums) is inevitably caught through the corners of our eyes from where it quietly impacts our experience. Their gentle zen-like elegance complements the soft drone quality of sound, consolidating the tranquil impact of O’Toole’s installation. So while it may appear that one sense is taking over, our perception is always comprised of multi-sensory intake – all senses always engaged, connected, inseparable; and the quieter imprint can have a profound subliminal effect. 

What is more, even though sound is the main (the loudest) feature of the work, the immersive listening does not necessarily translate into hearing the work. Involved in its generative production we are subjects in the work, not merely subjected to it, and this performative engagement is at once suffusing and distracting. Like Narcissus lost in the mirror of his image, seduced by his own reflection and neglecting to notice the shine of water, so are we enthralled by the sounds we make and this absorption causes barrier to hearing. Just as ‘to look’ is not the same as ‘to see’, so is ‘to listen’ not the same as ‘to hear’. Both require a gap. Stillness. Silence. Pause. A void, or a vacuous space, in which the sound can settle for a while. Resonate. 

To constantly move and produce sound is to remain a blur and a cacophony. It is only in pauses – when sounds recede into void and their reverberating voices ring in our ears, vibrate on our skin, flicker in our intestines – that the sound is actually perceived. 

As a dancer in Daniel O’Toole’s Voices from the Void, I sought pockets of silence amidst the inevitable sound. In the space where sound was almost impossible to escape, I tempted to bring it to pause and yet feared resting there for too long because each moment of silence (stillness) felt naked, loud, piercing. In the world where constant movement and constant sound is equated with vitality and skill – to pause seems an error. Awkward and jarring. This indeed is the world where we rarely take time (a gap) to see, hear, reflect. The world where void is feared and voices from it muted. 

LISTENING is sometimes WAITING, 

waiting TO HEAR 

Written by Ira Ferris, August 2023 

Ira Ferris is Eora-based interdisciplinary artist, writer, curator, and radio journalist. She has a background in contemporary dance and currently practices improvised dance technique called BodyWeather. As a dancer she was invited to activate and respond to Daniel O’Toole’s Voices from the Void at Oigall Projects (Dec, 2022) and Benalla Gallery (Feb, 2023). 

i Salome Voegelin, Listening to Noise and Silence, The Continuum 2010, pages Xi and Xv.
ii Voegelin writes: “I cannot freeze sound, there is no room for contemplation, narration or meta-position, there is only the small sliver of now which is a powerful influence but hard to trace.” Voegelin, p30. 

Collaborators-

Electronics and software engineer:
Lloyd Barrett

Metal fabrication [Red Steel]:
Richie Brownlee
Ari White
Seismo
Ellen Sayers

Polishing:
James Groom