LANDSCAPES: FIELD RECORDINGS
As recounted here previously, I recently had the chance to exhibit some field recordings as part of the landscape show “Field and Stream”, curated by Jaron Childs down at Rhineland, WI’s Art Start gallery.
Now that the show has concluded, I thought I’d upload the group of recordings to share them more widely:
Eventually I’ll probably give them the proper Bandcamp treatment. But done beats perfect for now.
It was an intriguing challenge to select pieces that would “count” as landscape works, given that they’d be heard among painting, drawing, photography, and video. In selecting pieces from my archives, and editing some work that I’d never previously shared, I thought a lot about how landscape was rendered via sound.
What interests me here is that the acoustic spaces are often activated by resonant elements that were invisible on-site (wind, insects, distant firecrackers, revving car engines, a multitude of frogs I never saw while recording their voices). The spaces are often described by actions one wouldn’t usually consider all that “landscape-y”— the skateboarders clacking around the light rail station come to mind, their impacts defining the dimensions of surrounding hard surfaces. A listener can imagine the space, never having seen it, by engaging in a highly inept sort of echolocation.
In the context of other enclosed works hanging in a gallery, I thought in terms of these recordings placing a frame around an acoustic experience. That helped me contextualize what I picked out in the context of a group show. Having experienced the show first-hand, though— which I didn’t— Jaron pointed out that the soundscapes, played back on a boom box in the gallery, filled the environment in a way that transcended a frame concept and permeated the space as a whole.
I’m grateful to Jaron, the Art Start crew, and everyone who witnessed this exhibition for the opportunity to share these works. I also appreciated the invitation to partake of the closing night Zoom. All the best to everyone!
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