Ancestral (r)Evocations

Tate Modern - London

I worked closely with artist Erika Tan to realise the technical ambition of her piece Ancestral (r)Evocations. Erika’s work was as a practice-based researcher as part of the Transforming Collections project, where she sought to uncover the latent narratives, silences, and entanglements within institutional archives. My role was to design and develop the technological infrastructure for her "data diagnostic instrument," a custom system that sonified metadata and object records drawn from the Tate and Wellcome archives.

I designed and built an interactive software instrument capable of parsing and interpreting these datasets in real time. The data was translated into sound and visual media through both generative synthesis and the physical actuation of Southeast Asian instruments embedded in the installation. These instruments were used to sonify archival patterns, creating a tactile and affective bridge between historical data and embodied listening.

As the project evolved, I led a wider production team to realise the full installation in Tate Modern. The final work brought together sound, machine learning, physical computing, and archival critique as a form of live research.

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On display in Tate Modern Tanks

Wiring up the ‘brain’ before installation

Prototype version of the ‘brain’.

Prototype Anklung solenoid actuators

Daniel Hearn CV TransformerLFO Di-ff-vergence Latent Lens Diffusertrack Ancestral (r)Evocations Feeling Sound

Daniel Hearn

CV

TransformerLFO
Di-ff-vergence
Latent Lens
Diffusertrack
Ancestral (r)Evocations
Feeling Sound