Watch sound and hear light as Robin Fox brings his acclaimed show Triptych to life at Melbourne Recital Centre on January 30.
Robin Fox has long held a fascination for looking at sound. The co-founding director of MESS and Melbourne Recital Centre’s Artist in Residence for 2025 discovered the catalyst for this passion – best described as synaesthesia – almost by accident. Just as most treasure troves are.
“I was making a lot of experimental noise back in the late 1990’s,” Robin tells me. “In early 2000, a Cathode Ray Oscilloscope (CRO) came into my possession. I was vaguely aware that they were used in recording studios for testing that mics were in phase – enough to know that I could feed sound into them and look at the sound.”
Robin Fox – Triptych
- Melbourne Recital Centre
- Thursday January 30, from 7.30pm
- Tickets here
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Robin followed his instincts, opening up before him a portal to a new world of sound and light, noise and colour. “What surprised me was a fraction of a second in a track I was looking at where I felt that that the sound and the light merged in the most perfect way,” Robin says.
“It didn’t happen with all sounds. But there was this moment where I really felt like I was experiencing something that I can only imagine resembles synaesthesia. It just felt right.”
Feelings seem a more suitable language to articulate Robin’s artistry, the result of which can be witnessed at his upcoming show of Triptych at the Melbourne Recital Centre. Words fall flat when trying to describe something so vivid, so multi-dimensional, so alive. But if there had to be any, it seems describing Triptych as an ‘audio-visual space-time carving’ is the closest one could get.
“Sometimes it’s incredibly difficult to describe what a work like Triptych is,” Robin reflects. “The ‘space-time carving’ describes the way in which the work inhabits a whole space – carving it up into its component parts. It also signals that what is important is the carving of time.”
‘The space changes the piece’
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“Composition, to me, is all about the concertina of energy over time,” he continues. “How a work morphs between states – the push and pull of the energy in the room – is what makes it work. So the space is carved by both light and sound in discrete moments, but it is in the flow of time that the magic happens.”
As the circumstances and environments of the places in which Robin plays Triptych at different venues to different audiences change, so too does the experience of the journey through this sonic space. “The piece doesn’t change,” Robin clarifies, “but the space changes the piece.”
“When you shoot planes of laser light around a space, there is no way that the space doesn’t ‘get involved’ in the performance. So, it’s not so much that I map the work to a venue, but that the venue wraps the work up in itself.” Artists often consider the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall at MRC, with its vast size and acoustic intimacy, as one of the city’s most beloved playgrounds for musical exploration. Robin agrees, adding “I am very excited to present the work there.”
The light dances around the hall. The sound tangos between the waves of the walls. It’s a whirlwind of colour and music, drawing the plywood panels and you into the moment. It’s no surprise this work demands a live experience.
“Something happens to us when we commune in groups and listen to and experience things together,” Robin reflects. “Our brains sync. We experience increased empathy and the brain emits endogenous opioids. It is magical!”
A performance you have to see to believe
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Magical for music-maker and music-experiencer alike, too. “I live for that live communal brain wave sync,” Robin says. “My work is all about presence, you need to be there.”
While Robin Fox will definitely be guiding you on the journey through Triptych, the music takes its own lead. “[Triptych] certainly surrounds the audience,” he says. “The immediacy of the connection between sound and light does hypnotise you before you know what’s happening!”
“I don’t like to be too prescriptive about what the audience should think or feel,” Robin continues. “I do hope that they experience something like a child-like wonder at what they are experiencing. If I’m being grandiose about it, I would say that I want them to leave the concert feeling like more is possible in the universe than when they came in.”
You can get tickets to see Robin Fox’s Triptych at Melbourne Recital Centre on January 30 here.
This article was made in partnership with Melbourne Recital Centre.
