steve roden
looking for faces in mothwings (100 intersections) , 2006
exhibition: sounds like drawing, the drawing room london, september 2006
solo exhibition: studio la citta, verona, italy, april 2006

looking for faces in mothwings (100 intersections), 2005, was created using the london A-Z as a score. i decided to use the book when i noticed the A-Z was the same size as the tuning area of my srutti box (an indian drone instrument, similar to a harmonium without keys). i traced one hundred intersections on separate sheets of paper and laid those pages over the srutti box tuning area one at a time to determine 100 tunings (when a drawing was laid over the tuning area, all of the "holes" that the drawn lines touched were opened).

i recorded 5 separate tracks of 20 intersections/chords - with the time between each chord being the time it took to map the intersection on the instrument and open and close the holes - it was all performed in real time. the five 20 intersection performances were then layered on top of each other, to create a kind of "chance orchestra" of srutti players performing without hearing what the others are playing.

the glockenspiel parts were played using the letter/number coordinates of the intersections so that the coordinates D7 would mean a hit on the D note and a hit on the G note (g is the seventh letter of the alphabet). the voice part was a created by humming along with the chords upon my first listen to the playback of the piece - an attempt to follow the audio map without really being able to navigate where it was taking me.... the title came out of this wandering...

this is the second audio map i created, the first was a map of the serpentine gallery's temporary pavillion designed by alvaro siza, in that case i mapped a space with sound; in this case a place.

the first version of mothwings was commissioned by the drawing room in london, and a second version was presented at studio la citta in verona italy. in both cases it was mixed for 5 speakers.

you can hear a short stereo version here









in london i also showed a related series of drawings

you can read more about them here

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