RESPONDER is a sound installation and architectural narrative that focuses on conducting the transmaterial voice of the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library in Columbus, Indiana. Responding to the historic idea of modernist buildings and their timeless relationship to their surroundings, and the Earth, this work will tap into the hidden life of the multiplicity of elements that make up a single building and will bring forth their presence, and most importantly their constant variability and oscillation in space, through sound. The project will likewise expand the sonic register of the building beyond its architectural materials and dive into the earth and tectonic shifts that occur below the ground creating an aural amplification of the transformation this building undergoes every day.


The installation will use a visual programming language to make this transformation present and immersive through sound and light. Every evening, programmed to synchronize with sundown, the Library will awaken for a 15-minute ‘sigh’ - its architectural shiftings - the vibration of steel, the soft murmur of brick, the sizzle of electrical wires and the hum of ventilation- will be transmuted into a therapeutic sound designed to wash over the sunken courtyard of the Children’s Entrance providing a healing sonic pool.