the lightest things float to the top (2023)

intermedia instrument and solo performance for sound & light

the lightest things float to the top is an intermedia instrument and solo performance for sound, light, and objects by Kittie Cooper. Kittie’s sound art practice centers around found sound and objects, and amplifying the memories held by these things. In the lightest things float to the top, Kittie takes a similar approach to composing light and shadow—reimagining lights from familiar spaces as an intermedia instrument. Patterns of the everyday, and their minute variations, provide the creative material and a gentle form for this semi-improvised performance.

As an instrument, the lightest things float to the top comprises several containers of various sizes and qualities that are filled with found objects. The found objects are put into motion using motors hidden inside the containers. The objects’ movements are then amplified sonically using microphones and live electronic processing, and are amplified visually as moving lights and shadows projected onto the walls of the performance space.

“She fancied that the rooms brightened as she came in; stirred, opened their eyes as if they had been dozing in her absence. She fancied, too, that, hundreds and thousands of times as she had seen them, they never looked the same twice, as if so long a life as theirs had stored in them a myriad moods which changed with winter and summer, bright weather and dark, and her own fortunes and the people's characters who visited them.” (Orlando, Virginia Woolf)

“What is heard by the listener is changed by listening and changes the listener.” (Quantum Listening, Pauline Oliveros) This performance took place at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts (Vancouver, BC) on September 7, 2023, in partial fulfillment of Kittie's MFA thesis. This show was the first in the development of this new performance practice.

Additional performances:

April 2024 – presented as part of the Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States distributed national conference event “Forest in a City” (Atlanta, Georgia) as a fixed media adaptation with live improvisation as accompaniment performed by Bent Frequency
[here’s a really nice review!]
September 2023 – presented for Music + Sound Seminar at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, British Columbia) with a Q&A following performance
April 2022 – very early (and different!) version presented for the MFA Festival at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, British Columbia) [see documentation below]