Curve is an installation for four speakers and a long curved wall. It was also the final work of my five-piece dissertation series exploring physical, virtual, and hybrid spaces as compositional tools. The balcony walkway at the rear of UVA’s Old Cabell Hall is bounded by a curved wall creating an intense, prolonged, and stunning echo that varies dramatically as one moves along the space. Curve played with this pronounced artifact along the wall’s 150 foot length. Using four speakers placed along the wall, the piece created an enveloping sound environment that varied as listeners walk from one end of the balcony to the other. In combining the unique sonic properties of the space with precisely tuned pitches, timbres, and rhythms, the installation made audible both the dramatic ricocheting echo and the effect of sound taking 135 milliseconds to travel from one end to the other–a perceptible and musically useful delay. The installation’s swells, drones, pops, pitches, and silences transformed the less-visited rear of the hall into a large immersive instrument.
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listen to a short excerpt of Curve, taken while walking along the balcony.
Curve premiered at the Digitalis 2010 Concert on May 4th. I hope to run it again in the future, as it could be fairly easily tuned to work along other long, curved, reverberant walls.
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).
Solera is now down. It ran very well (minus a few bugs that have since been worked out). I’m now on to other projects using the same gear, but am planning to install Solera again in the not-too-distant future, and hopefully in a very public space. I will likely make some changes for the next install based on what I learned from this one – primarily in how Solera encourages participation from the public.
Solera is now up and has been featured UVA Today, the University of Virginia’s main news outlet. Public affairs reporter Jane Ford did a story on the piece as well as my other dissertation works. Read it here.
I had a few problems starting the piece due to some software issues, but hopefully it will run smoothly from here on out. It looks nice hanging in the lobby, as the speakers and suspension system blend in to Ruffin Hall’s open industrial ceiling quite naturally.
Solera is a new installation (and part of my dissertation) that I will premiere in the main lobby space of Ruffin Hall at the University of Virginia on October 26, 2009 – it will run there for two weeks, 24 hours a day. Solera will spend each day accumulating and playing back the sonic activities and characteristics of the installation space – people passing through, conversations, machines, and music. Over the two weeks of the installation, the incidental sounds of each day and the acoustic resonances of the space will be layered upon each other, creating an aural memory of the space that will grow and change over time. Multiple visits to the piece are suggested.
I will give a free gallery talk on the piece on Monday, November 2nd at 5pm in the main lobby of Ruffin Hall. As the talk will take place in the space of the installation, it will also become part of the piece.
Solera is a new installation (and part of my dissertation) that I will premiere in the main lobby space of Ruffin Hall at the University of Virginia on October 26, 2009 – it will run there for two weeks, 24 hours a day. Solera will spend each day accumulating and playing back the sonic activities and characteristics of the installation space – people passing through, conversations, machines, and music. Over the two weeks of the installation, the incidental sounds of each day and the acoustic resonances of the space will be layered upon each other, creating an aural memory of the space that will grow and change over time. Multiple visits to the piece are suggested.