May 9 - June 6, 2015

Anna Biro – Haptic Voices

Please touch the artworks! Visual Voice Gallery invites its visitors to take off their shoes and experience Anna Biro's exhibition Haptic Voices with their hands and feet.

Biro's installation of hand woven and machine knit large-format textiles responds to the human touch by playing sound fragments. Walk across the carpet woven of recycled magnetic audio tape, metallic thread, and high-tech yarn and your feet will trigger a playback of audio clips in an array of voices, each a short burst of narrative. Glide your hands across the fibre works suspended from the ceiling and hear your gesture transform itself into a chorus of whispers and sighs. The interplay of the gallery visitors' interactions with the art installation creates an ever-changing soundscape.

The artworks are a playful exploration of sensory experiences and communication, creating a synthesis between haptics (touch feedback technology) and sonics. The sense of touch may be underrepresented in the art world, but haptic technology is becoming increasingly integrated into our everyday lives - think of smartphones, touch screens, buzzing joysticks, even rumbling cinema seats. Touch is also the first sense we develop, our most deeply rooted and intimate experience. By weaving together sound and touch, as well as analog and digital technologies, Biro creates a memorable synesthetic environment.

Discover the tactile potential of Anna Biro's haptic textiles from May 9 until June 6, 2015.

Anna Biro was born in Transsylvania, Romania, and currently lives and works in Montreal, Canada. She graduated from the Ion Andreescu Academy of Fine Arts in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Biro has exhibited her work in Europe, the USA, and Canada, and has represented Canada at the 5th International Textile Competition in Kyoto, Japan. The current focus of her work is the development and refinement of computer applications in textile processes and the deployment of textiles as a link between technologies, cultural histories and personal memories.