Andrea Polli

Originally appeared in Vague Terrain 04: The Body Digital

Retina Burn

Track Information
Retina Burn, 2004 Andrea Polli 27 minutes
Performed using the Intuitive Ocusonics system, Andrea Polli 1996-2005

MP3 Download (33MB)

Intuitive Ocusonics is a process in which voluntary and involuntary eye movements create a visual and aural landscape, melding visual and aural information through high end data transfer and eye-tracking technology. It concretizes the thought process, invading and amplifying subtle movements of the eye in real time through sound and image, examining the search for meaning through a biological lens.

Marc Weidenbaum reviewed Retina Burn in 'Disquiet: reflections on ambient/electronic music':

"SUN-KISSED MP3: One of the beautiful things about electronic music that's derived from conceptual art is that it provides its own readymade metaphors. In other words, in the absence of traditional musical form, we have the musician's m.o. to lend sense to something that is otherwise abstract. Case in point, Retina Burn, the new, half-hour long piece by Andrea Polli — takes as its source "soundwaves generated by the sun." ...Conceptually, Polli's point is self-apparent: by manipulating sound from the sun with her eyes, she's doing what we otherwise must not, which is to look directly at the sun. What's interesting, though, is that the resulting sound art, as heard on the overtly slow Retina Burn, doesn't suggest the scorching, brilliant center of our solar system (although the crackles do bring it to mind) so much as it sounds like data being processed meticulously in the name of science: pristine data sets published for peer evaluation."

Andrea Polli's biography