steve roden resonant cities

steve roden resonant cities (as she gently floats away), 2002 composed for the kunst radio series 'frequencity' broadcast on march 3, 2002 photo: towel rack in motel 6 in scottsdale arizona i started this project many times in my mind. it began with the idea of recordings based on the perimeter of the block i live on in los angeles -but i was in vancouover at the time. it moved on to include the architectural landmarks of los angeles that i remember from childhood, recording the sites where these things used to exist - but this thought came to me while in miami. i then decided on a long conceptual process oriented work for a city i was visiting for the first time - but by the time i began the recordings i had to leave miami for nyc - a place i had been many times before. by this point i had also completely given up on the idea of using my own city - my "home". it was a two week stay in japan a month later when i realized i had been to japan so many times (my wife is japanese) that i no longer felt like a tourist even though i can't speak the language. i no longer impatiently plead with my in laws to take me to temples and rock gardens. kobe is also my 'home'. over the last two years i have travelled to another city at least once every other month and spend several weeks in one place other than my own city at least 5 or 6 times a year. it becomes very sci-fi when japan is only 9 and a half hours away, and i am so comfortable when i am there that i make recordings of the wind blowing a scarf against the wall instead of the temple bells and other 'exotic' things that attracted me on my first few visits. i realize that my activities in terms of scrounging around for source materials have become the same no matter what city i am in. this almost lacadaisical attitude to being on the 'other side of the world' becomes about not just my city or a city; but the fuzziness of defining the things that attract my audio interest in a city as location specific. in every city i tend to seek the same things; and likewise, in every city there are things i always struggle to get away from. my work has always been about what rilke called the 'inconsiderable things' -the things that most people don't notice or simply pass by uncaring. in letters to a young poet he speaks of an artist seeking these 'inconsiderable things' as something to bring to ones innermost being as the basis of their art. after searching through my library of field recordings for material for this project, i realized that my visits to most cities are a kind of hunting activity to gather these inconsiderable audio things - and indeed as i listened to lot of these sounds they conjured up some very strong memories of moments when i have been in a city yet felt outside of 'city'- as though an intimate listening or soundmaking activity can completely take one outside of their immediate environment Ð to a place where the sound one is listening to begins to define the parameters of space. even quiet sounds, if one listens closely and intimately can direct one's attention away from the existing 'scenery'... as i move from city to city i don't feel like a nomad as much as i feel like someone who is always trying to find this kind of physical intimacy with an unfamiliar place. if the core of my visual and sound works is generally an attempt to make my inspirations my own (i don't love the world's robert bresson, i love my own robert bresson); then i think my attempt to record these 'unremarkable' activities in places is a way of attempting to make each city my own as well. to fit this square peg into the round hole that is my work. and thus, i have seldom used the location specific recordings of the exotic in turkey and my early temple bell gathering trips to japan. it is the recordings that ultimately deny the city its uniqueness and bring it all back to abstraction - to a purer listening experience that allows one to focus on the sound rather than the source - this is the focus of so much of my work. as i listened to my library of field recordings in an attempt to find source materials for this project, i found a series of investigations of 'resonant objects'. i had recorded metal coat hangers in motel rooms in new mexico, arizona, and paris - all many years apart; i had recorded the drones of radioators, air conditioners, and other such machines in asia, europe, and here in the usa; i had recorded wind - not the sound of the blowing; but its effect on other objects such as a hanging woolen scarf in kobe, a street light in a parking lot in cabazon california, and a glass door at the pompidou center in paris - and this is only the first stage of my audio microscope. as i listened, it became very clear to me that my interest was not really the traffic in greece; but a slight high pitched sound that happens for a second or two in the background. when i make field recordings, the attempt is not simply to document sound 'photographically'; it is an attempt to capture things in the background that my ears most likely wouldn't notice during the initial listening and recording process -to push the intimacy of the initial discovery to a place where an even deeper discovery can be made. for me, the city - any city - is a kind of garden of inconsiderable things; of intimate listening spaces and resonant objects. ultimately it is about the quiet moments in the city - that perhaps the city can't notice beneath the bed of its own primary sounds. i am attempting to dig beneath all of the noise and confusion at the surface of the city, and to move to a place where details can be seen at a much slower pace than in shinjuku station. this radio piece can act as a kind of reflector as the sounds of cities are indeed reflected back onto other cities - it is about the creation of a smaller quieter city within a city that is always moving - a space or a place where one can settle down and really listen - not so much to the sounds of the subway, but to the breaths that are quietly hovering beneath them - of course, there is hidden music everywhere. this entire work is made up from the following processed, fragmented, and 'pure' field recordings: traffic from a window in athems child kicking a tin can as he walks by me in cannakale voice reading the koran in istanbul voices on train from slovenia to vienna coat hangers in motel 6 in gallup new mexico woolen scarf tapping on window due to wind in kobe japan the ocean in mykonos towel rack in motel 6 in scottsdale arizona bathroom fan in hotel room in brasilia brasil birds in birdcages in market in sao paolo brasil glass door and wind at the pompidou center in paris metal coat hangers in hotel room in paris unknown location paris radiator in hotel room in berlin flagpole outside the museum of contemporary art miami florida piano and voices at tonic in new york light post and wind in cabazon california fish seller in kobe japan no other sounds or sound sources were used. bottom photo: light post and wind in cabazon california resonant cities is dedicated to ruth steiner		home bio exhibition & performance history images discography interviews press contact