2002
hand cut glass bottles
audio gear
20 channel sound work
armory center for the arts
pasadena
the moon gatherers was created for an exhibition of site specific works for the re-opening of the armory for the arts 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’.
this was the first of four works that involved hand cut wine bottles and small speakers.
this piece was also shown 2002 in berlin at the Singuhr – Horgalerie in Parochial using 8 bottles and speakers, and at gallery e/STATIC in torino as well.