Daniel Beban and Tim Barlow

24 April – 15 May

Fri 1 May, 6 - 8pm

Performance and Artist Talk: Daniel Beban and Tim Barlow

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Daniel Beban and Tim Barlow's immersive, interactive sound installation - Shadow Signals, fills the environment of Toi Pōneke gallery for the final exhibition at the Abel Smith Street space.

Visitors activate the installation using their mobile phone’s inbuilt torch-lights to create sound. Movement of the phones through a variety of sculptural objects casts shadows onto solar panels which convert the optical signals into sonic information. The result is in an immediate and direct transposition of the optical into the audible, making possible a kind of ‘signal music’: electronic glitch-scapes, data-noise and shadow-tones.

Tim and Dan first collaborated in 2023 in a tribute concert for the artist Jim Allen, held at Futuna Chapel in Karori. "We were really Inspired by the stained glass that fills Futuna" says Tim. "There's an intensity of colour and beauty of reflected light patterns in that space. So we're been trying to turn light into a physical presence that can emotionally affect people."

Shadow Signals comes out of Barlow and Beban’s ongoing optical/sound experimental performance duo project, The Photonics. Taking a cue from early experiments in light and sound technology, and current developments in data transmission, they create an interactive exhibition where everyone can participate in the manipulation and modulation of sound.

This exhibition has come out of Daniel Beban’s work while he was on the Toi Pōneke/NZSM Sonic Arts Residency 2025.

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other exhibitions

see other past exhibitions in the gallery archive