![Voice of God [2020]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a7f71749f07f553be3c1085/1595716530405-9PNENQCOG9TR1G0NN8WK/image-asset.jpeg)
This piece is a room-sized ambient sound sculpture made from various broken and discarded electronic objects. The objects are disassembled, suspended from the ceiling of the installation area, and activated such that each object contributes an individual sound. Collectively they create an auditory environment that seems at odds with their precarious and chaotic appearance. The piece was created while artist in residence at Art Produce gallery in San Diego, CA.
This is a collaboration with artist Joe Yorty, whose fascination for fake rock speakers was joined with my own obsession with collecting discarded answering machine tapes. The rocks are arranged in a semi-circle with each rock representing an individual in the library of personal messages. in the piece, the overtly deceptive nature of the speakers intermingles with the often painfully honest nature of the messages, and points toward questions of permanence and our relationship with mass-produced objects.
https://vimeo.com/735993438
Fan Club I
This piece uses the sound of computer fans to create shifting soundscapes. Salvaged fans are connected to motorized potentiometers that are controlled via computer to alter the mix over time. The fans are tuned to a companion piece, Fan Club II.
This piece was part of the exhibition “I Ate and Ate and Nothing Happened” at Bread & Salt Gallery, San Diego
This piece is a playful variation of previous piece creating musical sound with what would otherwise likely be determined to be technological trash. Three ordinary box fans are modified to hold tubes that are cut to spell out the notes of a major chord when spun.
This piece was part of the exhibition “I Ate and Ate and Nothing Happened” at Bread & Salt Gallery, San Diego
https://vimeo.com/733786548
In collaboration with artist Joe Yorty, This series of pieces feature assemblages of found objects on found shelves, activated with hacked and automated electronic toys. This piece was part of the exhibition “I Ate and Ate and Nothing Happened” at Bread & Salt Gallery, San Diego.
In collaboration with artist Joe Yorty, This series of pieces feature assemblages of found objects on found shelves, activated with hacked and automated electronic toys
This piece was part of the exhibition “I Ate and Ate and Nothing Happened” at Bread & Salt Gallery, San Diego
In collaboration with artist Joe Yorty, This series of pieces feature assemblages of found objects on found shelves, activated with hacked and automated electronic toys
This piece was part of the exhibition “I Ate and Ate and Nothing Happened” at Bread & Salt Gallery, San Diego
In collaboration with artist Joe Yorty, This series of pieces feature assemblages of found objects on found shelves, activated with hacked and automated electronic toys
This piece was part of the exhibition “I Ate and Ate and Nothing Happened” at Bread & Salt Gallery, San Diego
https://vimeo.com/735984450
In this piece, digital audio data from a #1 hit song is printed out on long spools of receipt paper used in commercial transactions. These paper reels are then traced by hand back into a computer. The resultant sound file is a version of the original material, but reinterpreted by the involuntary errors inherent to handmade processes, highlighting how bodies act as filters for digital data and commerce.
For centuries, prophets and madmen have been guided by divine words that none else could hear. Since the late 20th century, the phrase has accreted a host of meanings — from a tongue-in-cheek description of the amplified voice for theatrical narrative, to darker references of mental illness and ultrasonic weapons technology.
In this piece, these meanings overlap. Installed in the bell tower are sound-reactive lights and and speakers, including a type of speaker sometimes called the ‘voice of god’ – used by the military for crowd control and subterfuge. The speakers project recorded narratives from the tower, which flickers in electric light — transmitting literal, figurative and historical depictions of the layers of power and meaning caught up in the vocalization of the divine.
Documentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWdc1P0kelA&feature=youtu.be
This piece is a song cycle written from the position of a systems-connected technology in the CALIT2 research center as it gains sentience, explores its ‘environment’, and experiences adversity and obsolescence. Video feeds from unsecured live remote camera locations across the world act its ‘eyes’, and are interpolated and reprocessed as visual matrixes of standard ASCII text. As the ASCII letters are processed, the system watches for specific words that spell out poems found online. The system then ‘sings’ to the audience about a specific aspect of its experience.
Song no.2 of the cycle can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/262326450
A montage of the entire piece can be found here: https://vimeo.com/262588323
Callspace is a digital arts installation that utilizes cell phone technology to network ambient sound from unpopulated, site-specific locations into six speakers housed in monolithic aluminum structures.
Callspace premiered in August of 2010 at the Machines with Magnets Gallery in Pawtuckett, RI. This project is a collaborative work with Mark Cetilia and is made possible by a grant from the Creative Capital Foundation.
Song Cycle for Joseph Marie Jacquard is a physical sound "album" made from manipulated music boxes that create unique noisescapes that degrade over time.
Disco Vérité is performed using custom crafted Plexiglas discs. These discs are the equivalent size of standard 12” vinyl records, but completely flat. Because they have no grooves, the discs in their original form make no sound. On each blank disc are affixed bits of obsolete media in different patterns that are equivalent to a pattern one might see in a drum sequencer, but in circular form. These discs are played on standard DJ turntables and when the needle comes in contact with the physical material, it plays the sound of the material itself. When played together, they create a soundscape reminiscent of minimal techno, but from an analog, physical source.
Rejoinder is a reactive video portrait of the entangled experiences of place by temporary and permanent residents. By itself, the video plays as a continuous visual and aural presence. When the microphone is activated, voices of participants are recorded and repeated back using only the frequencies present in the documentary video, creating an echo of local inhabitants interpreted through the sounds of the city itself. This piece was developed and installed while artist in residence at Inside Out Gallery, Beijing.
Installation documentation: https://vimeo.com/75253290
Content video: https://vimeo.com/75253292
This piece is a reactive system that allows the presence of bodies within a performance space to affect and alter the states of obsolete digital sound equipment to generate a reactive, co-constructed sound environment in which technological cast-offs are entangled with human corporeality. The audio system is also activated by disturbances in electromagnetic fields detected by two energized copper coils. Fluctuations of these fields by human proximity, affect state changes in the feedback system and the sound.
Shift Register Shift Register is a sound installation that utilizes six hyperdirectional speakers mounted from above and deflected around the exhibit space by reflectors mounted on pan-tilt servos below. These control systems are in turn operated by electroencephalographic impulses of the performer. The sound and the images projected in the space are generated and altered by the unconscious brain activity of the subject, which changes dynamically with the subject's mind state.
Installation documentation: https://vimeo.com/32123983
Proof of concept and construction: https://vimeo.com/62555396
Letters From the Earth offers the possibility of a dialogue with those future beings, by reconstructing the impermanent messages on mobile devices into permanent physical missives that will last for centuries. Selected text messages use e waste to make them a permanent but hidden feature of the landscape in the manner shown.
Because plastic takes so long to break down (up to 500 years or more in a landfill) the messages will remain in the earth indefinitely. This is done in the hope that future inhabitants might stumble upon them in the course of archeological, geological, or subsistence exploration and consider the attitudes and sensibilities that previous generations had toward their lives, triumphs and follies. Similarly, Letters From the Earth calls on the present day technological operators and consumers to consider the impact their seemingly innocuous tool and toys might have on their descendants.