Idol originates from an encounter with a neolithic temple: a former burial site used to worship a goddess and the natural world. Sitting in silence for thousands of years, the site contains hollowed out acoustic chambers that resonate at 70Hz and 114Hz and affect physiological sensations on the body. When voices sound these frequencies together, powerful sonic reflections strike a “cosmological gateway through the boundaries of the underworld, into the realm of the dead.” (Reuben Grima)
Through sonic utterances, Idol imagines the ceremonial encounters that have taken place within this ancient architecture. The Goddess sculpture found at the centre of the site is an archetype reflecting the lives of neolithic women: from it, stretch lines of transmission between the (un)dead across time.
In the temple’s present silence are the residues of prayer and communal activity that linger as a cosmology of aural memories. Toll tunes voice, flute, glasses, and electronics to the temple’s resonant frequencies using the harmonic series to establish a vibratory musical language in dialogue with its dynamics of light and sound. As a divine and terrifying expression of commemoration, Idol asks: Where is the Goddess now?