Toward a Morphology of Presence: The Sound Installations of Thomas DeLio

Abstract

In music and art, what is traditionally generated is a fixed entity in which materials have been shaped into a unique design prior to contact with the perceiver. While such a design may be affected by the consciousness of the perceiver and the site in which his perception takes place, it is not structurally determined by them.

In the recent sound installations of Thomas DeLio, perceiver and site not only affect the design ‐ they literally determine it. “Presence” ‐ that phenomenological meeting ground between perceiver and site ‐ becomes a shaping force in the creation of structure.