Invader Species (2018)
interactive installation with sculptures and 3 channel audio
created in collaboration with Liza Butts (sculpture)
Invader Species, is a collaborative audio sculptural installation that uses interactive sound and sculpture to simulate an environment. The installation includes sculptural instruments that are covered in contact microphones. The microphones will respond to the audience members’ physical interaction with the pieces, and playback their touch with Leo’s soundscape. This will continually reshape and augment the sound.
The installation deals with the friction witnessed within rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods of Brooklyn, NY—specifically, the neighborhoods Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights. Invader Species, refers to the discomfort of groups of people moving into a neighborhood previously occupied and culturally dominated by another group of people. Leaving the residents of an area displaced and “invaded.” The work’s interactive element will draw parallels to the intrusiveness of people moving into a neighborhood and reshaping its environment. Leo’s soundscape collects audio samples from Crown Heights— sounds of the neighborhood’s music, conversations between people, cars and buses, children— distorting and diluting the sounds to emphasize the conflicting textures of the environment.