Rockstar

Rockstar, 2010, rockvideo, 06’03
vocals and video content provided by Tom

Rockstar investigates nonhuman sensory experience.

Dogs primarily investigate the world through scent-perception. They have about three hundred million scent receptor sites in their nose, compared to humans who have only six million. Dogs have more genes for coding olfactory cells, more olfactory cells, and the receptors in the nose connect directly to olfactory area in the brian. This combination of more and differing types, and quicker connections, affords dogs an estimated million times more sensitivity to scent than humans have. Perhaps this is why dogs love to travel with their head out the window of a moving car—they experience a rush of scent.

In Rockstar, Tom is portrayed close-up as he travels in this way. The soundtrack is produced solely from studio recordings of Tom’s vocals and from the engine of the car he travelled in. The visual effects and soundscape form a semblance of his perceptual and emotional experience.

Shown at:

  • 2013 “Beyond Human: Artist – Animal Collaborations“, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.
  • 2013 screening: “our animal others”, Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film, Durham, Ontario
  • 2012 “performance, platform. body affects”,  Sophiensaele, Berlin
  • 2010 “passages”,  Art Gallery of Mississauga, Mississauga, Canada

Production Team:

Julie Andreyev: video and soundscape
Tom: concept, actor, vocals
Simon Lysander Overstall: sound studio recording
Masayo Takada: cinematography
Hao Ting Mai: Research Assistant

Associated publication:

Andreyev, Julie. “Dog Voice: A Memoir”, Interactive Futures ’11: Animal Influence, Antennae, Issue 21, www.antennae.org.uk

Supported by: Intersections Digital Studios, Emily Carr University of Art + Design