In Relocation, Yann Novak explores the multitude of emotional states experienced during and after the relocation of one’s life. Utilizing his unique technique of transforming a simple environmental recording into something emotional and visceral, Novak creates three installations, each using a different step of the moving process as a point of departure. In all three works, Novak alters the timbre of the recordings but not the length. By doing so he let the subtly changing character of the original recordings dictate how the pieces will unfold. The pieces are spared formal compositional interjection from the artist and allowed to exist in the limbo between documentation and composition.
Relocation.Mobile investigates the roller coster of emotions experienced during physical relocation. It explores the interval between the dweller’s departure and arrival–the time when he or she has no current home, just a destination. Utilizing photos and recordings taken during the long drive down I-5 from Seattle to Los Angeles, Relocation.Mobile examines the push and pull, and the ups and down, of this emotional time that can bend one’s perception of time while he or she tries to prepare for the future and let go of the past. Relocation.Mobile is presented as a large projection of moving images with sound work provided through headphones to constrict the viewer’s experience so it is solitary and truly his or her own.