A sound installation by Canadian artist Kelly Mark plays I Really, a repetition of a to-do list, accompanied by the electronic beats of Sandrien in the stairwell at MOCA Toronto.<\/p>\n
Listen closely while visiting the sprawling Jeff Wall exhibition up now at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto<\/a> and you might hear thumping beats, as if there\u2019s an all-hours nightclub nearby. <\/p>\n The source of the sound? The museum stairwell, playing a techno track by Sandrien featuring the late Toronto-based artist Kelly Mark. The recording invites both dancing and deep contemplation. <\/p>\n For the past five years, MOCA has curated sound installations in its southern stairwell that connects the three floors of the museum. <\/p>\n South Stairwell Sound Series originated from an idea by Portuguese artist Carlos Bunga, who noticed the exceptional acoustic quality in the stairwell during the installation of his 2020 show, A Sudden Beginning. He asked if he could show a sound piece in the museum stairwell concurrently. The answer was yes. MOCA installed an audio recording of Bunga dismantling his own work; visitors could hear the artist\u2019s footsteps on cardboard as he took down one of his exhibitions in Europe. <\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Speakers placed throughout the stairwell play vocals of a mundane to-do list layered with electronic music.Sarah Espedido\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n \u201cAfter that, we thought, why don\u2019t we continue to put sound pieces in the stairwell,\u201d said Rui Mateus Amaral, MOCA\u2019s artistic director. \u201cIt was in the last two or three years that we decided to start commissioning works for the stairwell, as well as showing works that already exist because there are so many artists who work in sound, and it is an underrepresented medium.\u201d <\/p>\n The stairwell is a transit point in a museum that presents an unexpected viewing \u2013 or perhaps more accurately, listening \u2013 experience for visitors. The sound series at MOCA is a novel and inventive use of a space often overlooked for art installations, constrained by building codes that rarely permit hanging in the area. <\/p>\n MOCA\u2019s current sound installation, which can be found on YouTube, is by artist Kelly Mark, who passed away earlier this year. I Really takes the mundane task of creating a to-do list and how it can become Sisyphean in nature, and pushes it to its apex with club beats, sampled by Dutch techno-artist Sandrien. The repetition, accompanied by constant bass thumping, aptly recreates the feeling of being unable to escape one\u2019s own thoughts, so instead you simply get lost in them. <\/p>\n Mark had been working on the stream-of-consciousness text since 1996. In 2002, she recorded the list as an audio CD edition<\/a> of 1,000 things she \u201creally should do.\u201d The track was meant to be played out loud in a gallery. She was contacted by Sandrien\u2019s record company in 2010 about using her vocals on a \u201clittle electronic piece.\u201d<\/p>\n When it was first released, it made a mark on the world outside of art, and was a hit song<\/a> in Europe that summer, which MOCA\u2019s Amaral calls a bizarre crossover. <\/p>\n \u201cKelly Mark is a conceptual artist with a capital C,\u201d Amaral said. \u201cThe work was so smart and well-conceived, it also had such an emotional texture. There\u2019s such a strong sense of life and death, and the range of emotions that come with being alive and thinking about the human condition.\u201d <\/p>\n