sound installation
2011
sculpture center
long island, ny
distance piece is a soundwork that came out of the body of work called “stone’s throw”, which was related to my grandmother’s death and some remaining half carved stones (she was a sculptor). more specifically, distance piece is entwined with the film striations (also part of stone’s throw). striations was shot on 16mm with artist mary simpson, and during the filming, we recorded all of the actions with the thought of adding sound to the film.
when the film was edited, i began to create a number of sound compositions based on the recordings, yet everything i added to the film sound-wise felt unnecessary… and it became clear that the film was better off without sound.
during initial discussions about the film being exhibited at the sculpture center for the exhibition time again, curator fionn meade offered me the outdoor area of the exhibition space if i was interested in presenting a sound work; and so i decided to offer him one of the soundtracks that was able to stand alone as a self contained work.
what was interesting to me was the potential for a kind of situational displacement – where people exploring the outdoor area before entering the museum, would be hearing the sounds of my film’s production many minutes before they would confront the actual film.
the sound piece includes: local elements to my own landscape (cars and birds) as well as the actions that occurred during the filming – mary speaking, myself tapping stones, the sounds of the camera, bowing a cymbal, tapping a cymbal with a stone, two stones tapping together, etc.
the finished work is essentially a series of processed field recordings with an added structuring element in the form of electric guitar notes. in my grandmother’s things, i found a text by the sculptor henry moore, and so i used the vowel structure of that text to determine the notes which would repeat throughout the work as an anchor (i.e. a stone).
the installation was a stereo recording playing out of four speakers.