steve roden
the moon gatherers , 2002
exhibition: new works / new spaces, armory center for the arts, pasadena, CA, 2002, curated by jay belloli

the moon gatherers was created for an exhibition of site specific works for the re-opening of the armory for the arts building in pasadena. the work consisted of 20 bottles (each with a small audio speaker inside it) placed in the trees in front of the museum.

the piece was inspired by a work of joseph cornell's which consisted of a small bottle with a photo of the moon inside - as well as david tudor's rain forrest. i wanted to make a work related to the cornell piece, as well as explore the ways in which the glass bottles could act as little resonance chambers or speaker cabinets for these tiny speakers - working with the sounds and their relationship to the glass 'horns'.

the sound source for the work is a series of 16 channels of acoustic and electronically processed sounds of the bottles being tapped, blown, and played with a violin bow. these sounds were then transferred to 8 channels of 24 minutes running at different speeds so that the piece slowly changed for every 'viewing'.

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