steve roden moonfield text

steve roden moonfield, 2003 permanent collection of the museum of contemporary art san deigo (mcasd), in the summer of 2000, while teaching a drawing class in paris, i found a souvenir from yuri gagarin's first space flight at a flea market. it was a 45 rpm audio recording of his first transmission from space - and it was marvelously filled with surface noise, recording problems, electronic beeps, and for me, gagarin's indescipherable words. in the summer of 2001 i attended some events as part of the getty center's tudor-fest; a symposium on the works of david tudor. one of these was a reconstruction of the work 'rainforrest' where audio speakers where placed inside of and on top of everyday objects, which acted as resonators - i felt like a small child marveling at the way audio sounded through a metal car door or large glass bowl. in december of 2001 i discovered an image of a small collage object made by joseph cornell called song title lunar bottle from 1933, which consisted of a small bottle with a photograph of the moon inside of it. when i was invited to create a work for the stadt gallerie in saarbrucken somehow these 3 moments and objects became connected as the inspiration for an artwork. it was the visual image of the moon in cornell's bottle that suggested a speaker - which then set my mind back to tudor's work and the wondering of what would happen to a sound if i placed a loudspeaker inside a glass bottle. eventually i wanted the speaker to turn back into the moon - and gagarin's voice, which had been gathering dust in my studio, began to speak to me once again. my interest, of course, was not to make a work about gagarin, cornell, or tudor - nor specifically about the moon or the acoustic properties of wine bottles - but to use these connections of inspiration as both a point of departure and a way to impose structural elements, upon a working process and a finished work of abstraction. my inspirations and ideas are simply the triggers that jump start a work and to allow the process of its making to follow a particular path of both conceptual and intuitive process. as with most of my installations (and likewise my paintings, drawings, sculptures and filmworks) - i am interested in the end result existing on its own. existing at a comfortable distance from my own ideas and intentions - as a simple and quiet presence that can alchemically transform an otherwise empty room into a space of quiet contemplation.		home bio exhibition & performance history images discography interviews press contact