Lauren Levato Coyne
Jul 13, 2023
MIT Spatial Sound Lab curated and mixed four spatial sound works to be played back in a pop-up 4.1 channel spatial audio theater. These works screened three times throughout the evening blended with other spatial audio pieces in a ~45 minutes long program; there were opportunities to participate in discussions with the artists and MIT crew throughout the evening.
Kit Orion — Get Grounded Reviewed by Lauren Levato Coyne
I’m generally a big fan of assembled works, fragments that build a whole. It feels very experiential to me, and reflective of our human experience. Kit Orion turned her digitized home videos into an assembled soundscape that reflects our own experiences back to us, experiences of love and home that we also had or, perhaps, hoped we had. She effectively used her own personal narrative to weave a story in which we also feel at home.
In her statement, Orion writers that Get Grounded explores a depressive episode through her nephew’s laughter, “finding light in dark spaces.” I have managed depression throughout my life and can attest to the power of sound during those times. It’s also the sense that is most tied to our cognitive stability or decline as we age. Orion deftly harnessed the power of hearing + memory, prompting feelings of nostalgia, hope, and kinship with her work.