steve roden
bird forms, 2001
exhibition: snapshot, ucla hammer museum, los angeles ca
& miami museum of contemporary art, miami fl, 2001

bird forms was originally created for the exhibition 'snapshot' at the ucla hammer museum in los angeles. it also travelled to the miami museum of contemporary art in miami florida.

the piece was initially inspired by the trees in the center courtyard of the hammer museum. i wanted to create a piece for the trees that had a similar presence to birds landing and wandering around all the branches. the installation involved 8 tracks of audio spread out over 40 small speakers placed on various branches. the original sound source materials were acoustic recordings of dried leaves and twigs, as well as some early 78 rpm recordings of bird songs. all sounds were manipulated and transformed electronically. the piece was intended to interact with the somewhat fractured nature of the trees in the middle of a very unnatural landscape. these images are from this initial installation at the hammer.

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