2010 March | peter traub

Chirp! : playing summer in winter

Chirp! was an evening I created for Audio March at The Bridge in Charlottesville on March 10, 2010. It was an experiment in effecting seasonal disorder. We raised the temperature inside the Bridge’s main gallery space up to 83F and added a little humidity. I created a continuous sound installation, Freesound Summer that surrounded the space with sounds of summer such as birds, cicadas, children playing, and fireworks. I also hung a 660 watt ‘sun’ that I constructed from clamp lights, wire, and lighting gel scraps. While we were a small group, our wonderful performers, New Loft, Dzian!, and Cathy Monnes really had fun with and in the space. The performers played with the sound installation surrounding them, and the resulting mix worked well enough that I will try to do this again. Listen to New Loft’s improv below to hear the combination of their live instruments with my installation.

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Chirp! was not a serious evening, but a reason to have fun, wear short sleeves, and get a little bit of summer in the air after our very snowy winter. Thank you to our performers, as well as The Bridge for hosting Chirp!.

Study No. 1 for Bodies, Metal, and Air premieres

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After several months of work in the metal shop and rehearsals with my choreographer partner, Dinah Gray, and our dancers Rose Pasquarello Beauchamp, Lisa Eller, and Aaron Wine Goldman, our piece Study No. 1 for Bodies, Metal, and Air premiered at McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville on March 5th, 2010. It was the third completed piece in my dissertation series. We did three performances over the evening, and each one was well-received. Audience members were able to play with the metal items in the sound environment after each performance. The accompanying video is from the second performance of the evening. As the sound is so spatially-specific, the subtle changes do not translate well to a recording, but the video gives a general idea of the piece. You can read more about how it works on the Sounds page.

Installing at the Center for the Study of the End of Things

In February of 2010, two local artists, Ashley Williams and Wes Milholen, organized an art show, The Center for the Study of the End of Things in a soon-to-be demolished former furniture store in Charlottesville, VA. The participants ranged from UVa students to established local artists. Sculptures, paintings, and installations were displayed in a variety of spaces. I was able to take over a small former office space near the center of the building that overlooked the showroom floor. I installed four speakers and a single microphone, put in red lights, and a single bright white spotlight recessed into a portal in the ceiling. The installation, which I titled Sound Study at the Center of the End of Things worked in five-minute cycles. It first recorded audio in the room for thirty seconds, then progressed through a five minute composition based on spectral manipulation of the audio. It was played loudly, and could build to a significant intensity.

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I also performed a half-hour live set with fellow grad student, Erik Deluca (see slide show for photos).