At the boundary between the physical and immaterial, sound and vision, this project explores the relationship between musical instrument, visual art, musical gesture, and the creative mark. The Other Side of Air is one in a collection of interactive sound works for paper and other flat surfaces with printed circuitry and electric signals. While these works are inherently “prints” of copper and aluminum foils on paper, they are also sound objects: participants can create sound through gesture on, near, and above the surface of the artwork. The sound signal is carried in the conductive foil and activated by participants. While part of the compositional sound process comes from the signal in the material, the actual sound heard is completely dependent on the choices and coincidence of participant interaction.

In this way, The Other Side of Air confounds our expectations of the sound object and the materiality of printmaking, paper, and design. Composed of visual systems for expressive performance—notational language—these works explore the concept of the physical mark of notation as a symbolic container of the idea of sound, our relationship to that system, and to sound itself.

—Jess Rowland