Attractor

Attractor, 2025

Listening sculptures (8 microphlora), UV paint, nectar (various), listening score, live streamed 8-channel audio, live performance.

Attractor is a four-part work, comprising listening sculptures, live-streamed audio, a listening score and an invitation to respond. Copper sculptural microphones (microphlora) with sensory modes of attraction entice birds and insects close enough to be heard. Influenced by the aesthetics of field-recording, the microphlora collect and amplify the sounds of local species, broadcasting them live via internet radio.

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Drawing from the work of composer Pauline Oliveros, theorist Vinciane Despret and biologist Jacob von Uexküll, Mackenzie's practice of 'NonHuman Sensing' creates multispecies sensing devices, text scores and public workshops that ask us to reconsider environmental relationships through imagining ourselves from another’s subject position. For the work Attractor, the devices are ‘microphlora’ - sculptural copper forms that resemble something between a flower and a parabolic microphone. The microphlora use colour, UV paint, warmth, aroma and a variety of food sources to attract non-humans close to their live-stream microphones. Sounds picked up by the microphones are transmitted live to an indoor 8-channel audio system. 

For Attractor's first presentation in Norway, Mackenzie worked with Moss Ensemble Consensus choir to listen and respond to the sounds from the sculptures, leading to a performance for the opening weekend of MOMENTUM13 at Moss Kirke.​

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Choral composition in collaboration with Moss Ensemble Consensus (founded 2010) and conductor, Margrethe Ek.

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Copper spinning: Malcolm Cheyne, NE Metal Spinners

Metalworking support: Jason Shearer, Lee Mitchell

Streamboxes and live support: Grant Smith

Powder Coating: Tayside Powder Coating Services​