AV Case Study: Angelica Mesiti’s: The Rites of When
Angelica Mesiti’s: The Rites of When is a seven-channel video and audio installation commissioned for The Tank Gallery deep under the Art Gallery of NSW. The results are astonishing.
20 December 2024
Text:/ Christopher Holder
When audio designer Bob Scott first encountered The Tank, it was sloshing in water and had Moreton Bay Fig roots poking through the ceiling. To say it was an other-worldly place hardly begins to describe it. Yet, being an audio guy, naturally he brought some audio gear. He wasn’t brave enough to fire a starter’s pistol but he did drop a piece of ‘four by two’ timber and recorded the results. The Tank had a low-end reverb decay time of eighty – eight-zero – seconds.
A brief history lesson: The Tank was built as a fuel store for allied ships in WWII. It could hold some 7000 tonnes of fuel, and featured 8m-high ceilings, and 125 columns. Parts of the walls are five metres thick. The Tank lay disused for more than 30 years until around 2013 when the Art Gallery of NSW started to scope it out as a site for its Sydney Modern project. It’s now an integral part of the gallery, sitting four levels under the foyer.
Angelica Mesiti’s The Rites of When is a commission for The Tank. It’s a seven-channel video work presented in surround sound. It’s a masterpiece that perfectly marries beautifully choreographed media with one of the world’s most distinctive presentation spaces. But it’s best that Beatrice Gralton sets the scene. Beatrice is Senior Curator of Contemporary Australian Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the curator of Angelica Mesiti’s: The Rites of When:
Installation of Angelica Mesiti ‘The Rites of When’ 2024, 7-channel digital video installation, colour, sound, approx 30 min, collection of the artist, commissioned by the Art Gallery of New South Wales for the Nelson Packer Tank, 2024 © Angelica Mesiti, photo © Art Gallery of New South Wales, Jenni Carter (exhibition photos).
BUILT LIKE A TANK
Beatrice Gralton: “The Tank is a 2200sqm space, and it’s like walking into a cathedral or a huge cave. I think what’s so unique about the Tank space is that it’s a place humans were never meant to be.
“It’s an incredibly cavernous and complicated space to work in, and we love giving artists this challenge to see how they respond. Angelica Mesiti is known for her work in video, performance, and sound art, with her practice incorporating choreography, light, colour, and, crucially, sound.
“In The Tank, sound plays an especially important role due to the space’s complex acoustics. We had to be meticulous about the equipment, testing it thoroughly to ensure Angelica could achieve her vision.
“Angelica has essentially played The Tank like an instrument. She’s listened to it with her musical colleagues and artistic collaborators, gone into the space, and experimented with sounds – figuring out what works, and what doesn’t. She’s taken all of that into consideration while working with other artists to compose the score.”
RECORDING IN PROGRESS
The result is a 34-minute loop with three sections where Angelica’s visuals are married to three very different musical offerings. The first is a collaboration with La Mòssa, a French vocal group; the second is a collaboration with Australian percussionist and composer Bree Van Reyk; while the third is an electronic composition by Chloé Thévenin and Bob Scott, which was created in Bob‘s studio in Pyrmont, where the soundtrack was mixed.
“Angelica, the artist, is a brilliant composer and editor. She deconstructs and reassembles music in unique ways,” explains Bob Scott. “La Mòssa’s vocal recordings were meticulously captured in Paris, with layers separated for flexibility in post-production. Bree’s session involved creating meditative layers of bells and gongs, which became the foundation for the score.”
According to Bob Scott during the time spent creating Rites of When’s soundtrack in the studio he imposed a 30-second hall reverb across the mix at all times, in an effort to simulate the impact of The Tank on the composition. In many ways, everyone was working for the one boss… The Tank:
“There were two main aspects of my role as audio engineer and audio designer for this project,” Bob reflects. “Ensuring Angelica’s music plays The Tank like a giant bell and that the audio was perfectly married to the visuals in the installation.”
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what’s so unique about the Tank space is that it’s a place humans were never meant to be
Seven Panasonic REQ10 4K laser projectors were used in standard ‘landscape’ mode to keep a low profile.
MONOLITHIC VISUALS
We’ve dwelt on the audio component of The Rites of When, and ‘ritely’ so – they’re extreme. Getting the visuals spot on was also a challenge. Again, let’s allow Beatrice Gralton to set the scene:
“For this installation, we built seven screens, each six metres tall and three metres wide. The screens represent the stars of the Pleiades cluster, a key conceptual element of the work.
“We debated as to whether we should use LED screens or projection and ultimately chose projection. The clarity of the image on these screens is more beautiful and pure. People are often surprised by the lack of shadow when they approach the screens, as the short-throw projectors are carefully installed to avoid casting shadows. This design avoids a ‘Times Square vibe’ and instead creates a softness – akin to the cinematic experience – producing a subtle yet striking surface.”
The art gallery’s audiovisual coordinator of exhibitions, Mark Taylor, picks up on the detail:
“We’ve used seven Panasonic REQ10 4K laser projectors, each projecting onto a monolithic screen. This results in a resolution of 2160 pixels high by 1080 pixels wide on each screen.
“The projectors are rigged in a standard ceiling format, using only a slice of the 4K resolution. This setup avoids the need for portrait orientation, which would have been more visually obtrusive. The result is a seamless visual experience – visitors often assume the screens are LED panels, but projection was chosen for its softer, less brash aesthetic. The artist was clear in her preference for projection, and we believe the final result is spectacular.”
THE TANK’S PLUMBING
Mark Taylor describes the back of house install and media transport of The Rites of When:
“The work is played back via two Apple Mac Studio computers networked together, running QLab. A central timecode from one Mac ensures tight synchronisation. This system is housed in a comms room adjacent to the Tank Gallery and makes use of the in-house patching. We’re employing a Dante Virtual Soundcard to send WAV audio from the Macs to an Allen & Heath dLive system, with further Dante connectivity to ceiling-mounted Meyer Sound MPS units. These MPS units use IntelligentDC cabling to power the speakers and screens, which is safer in a gallery setting and reduces cabling.”
CLARITY THE KEY
Bob Scott explained that a key objective of The Rites of When project was to achieve seamless integration between audio and visuals in the installation. He noted that, in many exhibitions and events, audio typically originates from overhead speakers or flanks the screen. In contrast, cinema sets the gold standard, with critical sound elements emanating from behind the screen – an approach that elevates the auditory experience to match the visuals.
“We insisted on using perforated screens with speakers embedded behind them. In my view, this was a huge win for the installation,” asserts Bob Scott.
The speaker of choice was the Meyer Sound Ultra-X22. Mark Taylor explains: “The choice of Meyer Sound Ultra-X22 speakers was influenced by their compact size and high performance. We needed to fit them within the 300mm depth of the monolithic screens, a requirement from the French designer, Simone de Dreuille. These speakers provide an 80° by 50° coverage pattern, helping to maximise clarity in the space despite its complex acoustics.”
COVERING ALL BASSES
Complementing the seven Meyer Sound Ultra-X22 loudspeakers is a solitary Meyer Sound 900-LFC subwoofer. Bob Scott explains the LF challenge:
“The Tank’s bass response posed unique challenges. The 40-second LF decay means bass sounds quickly turn into drones. We conducted a subwoofer shootout, ultimately selecting the Meyer Sound 900-LFC for its tight, controlled low end and exceptional resonance. It was the only sub capable of filling the space without overwhelming it.”
ALL RITE ON THE NIGHT
Getting The Rites of When ready for the public required some unusual measures in the final stages of preparation – this is The Tank, after all. The artist Angelica Mesiti spent days fine tuning her work inside the space. Her colour grader was flown in to make final tweaks to the colour balance of the visuals inside the space. Meanwhile, Angelica and Bob Scott massaged the music mix from within The Tank as well. “The playback system was carefully chosen to handle visually lossless ProRes video files with WAV audio, ensuring maximum quality,” explains Mark Taylor. “The use of the existing patch system, fibreoptic video transmission, and Dante audio helped achieve a seamless and visually clean installation.”
The result is really something quite special. ‘Unique’ is an overused term but in this case you’d be quite within your rights to apply it. Beatrice Gralton certainly thinks so: “The Tank is a unique space, even on an international scale. Artists and museum professionals from France, Hong Kong, Singapore, and other parts of Europe have come specifically to experience this work in this extraordinary location.”
For veteran audio pro, Bob Scott, it’s the kind of gig he lives for: “This project has been a dream job – collaborating with a visionary artist like Angelica and working with the Art Gallery of NSW, which provided top-tier equipment and full creative support. The results speak for themselves, and I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved.”
Art Gallery of NSW: www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au
Meyer Sound: meyersound.com
Panasonic Connect: oc.connect.panasonic.com
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