Puppets Forsaken is an acoustic noise band comprised of David Gifford and Natali Leduc.
The Noisebau in the Main Gallery, 2024.
Puppets Forsaken started to collaborate on a sculpture/sound project in 2019 that they called Nostalgia for Futurism. Inspired by the Intonarumori of Futurist Luigi Russolo, author of the manifesto Art of Noises (1913), they built some acoustic noise generators that they used for performances. These machines contrast with our digital age, and allude to the mechanical age. They produce sounds reminiscent of factories, gears, and machines, which, according to Russolo, correspond to our everyday lives and resonate with our bodies more accurately than music.
Through this investigation, Puppets Forsaken have developed an audience in the regional “Noise” circuit, they have performed for old growth trees that are no longer there, engaged their work in a theory symposium, interloped in a Visual Art Performance and entered a telekinesis competition. They even recorded an album (Greatest Hits).
While they had a terrific experience building their noise generators and playing them in public, Puppets Forsaken felt that the audience was missing a big part of the experience, since they could only listen, and not play the instruments. For this reason, they decided to build The Noisebau, an interactive and immersive architectural sound envelope, which is the project they are presenting at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art.
The Noisebau in the Main Gallery, 2024.
When visitors produce sounds emanating from The Noisebau, these become an extension of the participant, who has a certain control over their rhythm, pitch and intensity. There is an implied resonance between the participant’s interior and what is behind the walls (the mechanism). By building an immersive installation, they want the audience to feel they are part of the work. Being inside the noise generators is not meant as an act of transgression by the designers, or to aggravate or cause discomfort, but for the audience to pause and reflect on those noises that are usually forgotten in the background. Producing the sound themselves, the visitors will feel the noises at a more personal and visceral level.
Beside being experiments with acoustic noise, Puppets Forsaken’s projects are imbibed with their deep love for trees and their positive impact on the planet. They are preoccupied by facts such as the disappearance of old growth trees. On Vancouver Island, only 2% of the old growth forest still remain. They wanted to pay homage to the ones that fell to humans, and decided to serenade them. In this spirit, they did two concerts and 2 videos in a clear-cut area meant solely for trees that are no longer there (one with our first set of instruments, and another one with The Noisebau). No humans were invited to these concerts. There is in this act some nostalgia for trees that have disappeared, and the anticipation of a greater loss. It is likely only when these remaining ecosystems have been erased that their true meaning and loss to us will be revealed. This is amplified by some of the noises coming from their modular noise generators that allude to saws and other tools used to cut trees.
Puppets Forsaken are currently working on a new instrument, called Knock-Knock, that mimics sounds of endangered species.
Puppet Forsaken’s exhibition The Noisebau will be on view in the Main Gallery of the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art from January 19 to March 2, 2024.
The Noisebau received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts & the BC Arts Council.
Knock-Knock received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts.