Brett Ian Balogh

Ninety percent of the world’s earthquakes and more than half its active volcanoes can be found in the “Ring of Fire” encircling the Pacific Ocean. Brett Ian Balogh’s multimedia installation Chora (2009) takes its inspiration from the region’s constant upheaval.

As four speakers emit sounds resembling a cross between ocean waves and scraping metal, the Chicago artist projects a moving abstract image (pictured) on one wall. The network of white filaments on a black background keeps collapsing inward, twisting and changing form.

While the immersive environment Balogh creates is hypnotic and unexpectedly relaxing, the disturbing concept underlying Chora gives the project its strength. When we meet the artist at Experimental Sound Studio, he tells us he’s fascinated by the way Earth’s seemingly stable crust lets us forget about the “molten magma” roiling under it—at least, until the planet reminds us of its geologic “stresses and strains.”

The strange sounds in Chora come from a recording of seismic activity at Sicily’s volcano Mount Etna, which Balogh found online and sped up until its frequency became audible to humans. An audio processing method called granular synthesis enables him to sample tiny excerpts of the recording—measured in milliseconds—alter their length and pitch, and recombine them. These “grains” are the data feeding Chora’s visual component, developed using CAD (computer-aided design) and Blender, an open-source video-game engine. The artist emphasizes the piece’s randomness; unlike most art videos, it’s not a loop. Chora changes in real time: a powerful symbol of the not-so-solid ground beneath our feet.

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