steve
roden
o.t.r.
and s.w.o.t.r., 2001-2002
exhibitions: en red o festival, barcelona
spain 2001
beyond noise conference
in august of 2002, at ucsb in santa barbara california.
here is the text included with the installation:
"a few years ago, my mother gave me a small stack of 45's that were her
favorites as a kid: chuck berry, the platters, etc. when i began listening
to these, it was not only the music that i was attracted to, but to the
surface scuffs from repeated listenings and years of wear and tear.
for
o.t.r. & s.w.o.t.r. i used a recording of 'over the rainbow' by the dimensions
as my source material. what you are hearing are the processed sounds of
the surface noise at the beginning and end of the record - along with
some of the first and last notes.
i was inspired by the noise as a kind
of physical history of the object. the sound of a vinyl record exists
as a kind of performative or listening moment - i wanted my work to exist
as a kind of after-listening - like a memory that has disintegrated into
the fuzzy shadows of its original presence.
the aging process of a human
and a piece of well played vinyl is not so different - one is covered
with wrinkles and scars, the other with scratches and fingerprints. these
'images' begin to re-define the surface as a new surface or new persona
- a new face built upon the old one - and a 'song' composed of disturbances
and interruptions. somewhere beneath the 'noise' the song still exists.
i like the idea that this quiet repetitive music is a kind of aesthetic
mirror for all those nights when my mom, as a teenager, fell asleep listening to these records...
the dark room humming with a quiet minimalist rhythmic bump of a needle stuck
in the last groove - endlessly circling the record label until morning... "
the presentation form of the work was very straightforward, a simple cd player, and amp and two small speakers.
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