Janet Cardiff is a multidisciplinary Canadian artist known for making immersive artworks that explore sound and augment the viewer’s sense of reality. While she studied printmaking, interest in various technologies led her to explore a range of audiovisual media. Cardiff first gained recognition for her audio walks, site-specific works that combine recorded narration, music, and environmental sounds that guide listeners along a predetermined path. The binaural recordings create a sense of three-dimensional space, blurring recorded audio with the ambient sounds of the surrounding environment. In Glenstone’s collection is The Forty Part Motet (A reworking of “Spem in Alium,” by Thomas Tallis 1556), 2001, a groundbreaking audio installation comprised of 40 speakers placed in an oval, with each speaker playing back the isolated vocals of a single choir member. This dynamic approach enables listeners “to climb inside the music,” as Cardiff describes, while emphasizing the exploration of a complex polyphony of sound.

–Daniel Mauro, from the Glenstone Field Guide