Watertable

Lisa: My name's Lisa Steel and Kim Tomczak and I created "Watertable", which is the light and sound sculpture you're standing under. We put in for the competition with the City of Toronto and the competition asked for works that responded to the idea of the original shoreline of Lake Ontario. And we wanted to emulate the waves in the lake.

Kim: As we look up at the lights above your head on the underside of the Gardiner Expressway, we want you to think back to when the lake was here, to listen to the sounds of the lake, to have a moment of peace and quiet by the lake shore which used to be here, and just enjoy the waves as they pass over.

Lisa: It starts with a large wave and then it gets smaller and smaller and smaller and then a large one comes. I think we wanted to really create a sense of memory. We wanted to create the sense that you're standing right where the original shoreline was. Watertable works... it always moves in a wavelike pattern. It just sometimes it moves more slowly and sometimes it moves more quickly. It also has a small interactive component that works with something, a very simple little mechanical device that measures wind speed. And the programs that run the audio and the video are in tune with this.

Kim: The light work that you're looking at and sound work is controlled by electronic controllers in a box hidden away. And technologically the project was entirely over our heads. And so we sought the best help that we could afford. And we were really lucky to work with Darren Copeland, who's a sound artist, and also David McCallum, who's an artist and an engineer, and he programmed the light works for us. And that allowed us to work in much more subtle ways, much more nuanced ways on the project.

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