Tracey Cockrell

To approach a concept, as one would a form, from differing points of view,
is a kind of sculptural thinking. It is a pluralistic, non-hierarchical, flexible
and multidirectional query, which navigates from one distinct vantage point
to another. Circumscribing the whole embodies the richness of the sculptural experience.
Time, memory, and corporeality are inherent in this experience.

My work is performative in nature, engaging physical interaction.
Collaboration activates these works and is essential to one's experience of them.
The form and structure of language informs my work, as does the expressive capacity
of kinetic gesture. As a sculptor, my process is that of a synthesist, combining materials
and bodies of knowledge in an effort to articulate. Since 1998 I have been working
on a number of collaborative projects, engaging with other artists, writers and musicians.
The accompanying portfolio represents both solo and co-authored works.

Poemophone is a series of typewriter-driven sound sculptures based on the mbira and the sitar, traditional musical instruments from Zimbabwe and Northern India. I chose these two instruments primarily because of the richness of their tuning systems and my interest is in how the poetics of making meaning is grounded in the look and sound of these instruments. “Outlaw tuning” and sympathetic strings provide an onomatopoetics of form. The instrument/sculptures are to sound the thing described, providing the springboard for collaborations.

WMDcozy is a public conversation/collaboration about disarmament through the absurd gesture of presenting a low-tech solution to a high-tech problem. The website www.wmdcozy.com invites governments to retire their weapons of mass destruction, citizen participants to help knit gigantic cotton cozies for these retired wmds and offers creative suggestions for re-purposing weapons of all kinds.

A third body of work is a series of installations focusing on psychoacoustics and the subjectivity of place. Working with Fm transmissions, I have created installations and sound sculptures in which broadcast sounds are accessible only through physical interaction on the part of the viewer. Actions such as wearing or carrying an object/receptor through the gallery or climbing and traversing the surface of a sculpture are sometimes required to experience the audio elements of these works. The viewer choreographs his or her own experience by moving through space.