2011
WINDOW
‘Window’ is a photographic landscape installation that was up in intervals on Dec 2 as a featured piece in the Billboard Art Project. The work used a digital billboard that typically obscures a small section of the Santa Ana Mountains off of Interstate 15. In this piece, a photograph of what can be seen directly behind the billboard was displayed on the billboard’s surface in an attempt to repair the visually severed mountain range.
During the installation, Los Angeles freeway commuters briefly witness the billboard transform into a window. The billboard appears first as a separate figure from the surrounding mountain range. As the viewer drives south its image aligns and then dissolves into the background for a fleeting moment. For this second, a view of the past -before the billboard was constructed- may be seen in a frame of present day media. This window offers an alternative vision to the advertising that dominates roadside landscapes and questions how the human relationship with the natural world is mediated by our experience as consumers.
The Santa Ana Mountain Range is a key topographical feature in the city of San Bernardino. Lying directly east of Los Angeles and Orange Counties, San Bernardino captures much of the smog blown east on daily ocean breezes from its larger westward neighbors. 13 of San Bernardino’s varying smog conditions were visually represented in the piece.
‘Window’ is part of my broader exploration of the interactions between manmade and natural environments and human perception.
BLDGBLOG posting of this work: http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/horizon-repair.html
2010
FIELD SWEEP RECORDING
Text score, gathered ‘sonic rubbings’, and memory map graphic scor
‘Field Sweep Recording’ is a text score written to track change in our manmade and natural landscapes with sonic rubbings. What is lost when familiar surfaces change? Surface texture and sound can track the changing biography of a place. Performing a Field Sweep Recording on a familiar route can help track transformations in your local landscape.
Materials needed:
long resonant object
map of the area you live in
rubbing materials (pastels, charcoal, or crayon, and paper).
Players/musicians: 1 to many (30+ for a grand sweeping of the place)
Directions:
ACT 1
Trace an everyday route you take on a map (a trip to the grocery store, to work, etc). Travel on foot through the traced path. Pass a long resonant object across the surfaces of the path—drag the object along the ground, wall, fence, tree, stairs, etc. As the object vibrates in your hand, find the rhythmic qualities of the textures beneath it. Diverge from your intended route if you choose.
ACT 2
When you come to the end of your route, retrace your path with rubbing materials in hand. Place paper over each sounding surface and rub a pastel or charcoal on it to document the texture. Keep these recordings as an archive of your route.
ACT 3 (Optional)
The resulting rubbings may be chronicled into a graphic score and performed with instrumentation. See “ACT 3 of ‘Field Sweep’—A Memory Map Score” for an example of a graphic score drawn from memory of the first Field Sweep Recording performed in Santa Clarita, California.
ACT 4
Repeat this activity, documenting the same route each year. Compare your new sonic rubbings to that of the previous years. Observe audible and visible changes.
See the Mammut publication on Solastalgia for the Field Sweep Recording full instructional score, page 28-31:http://www.mammutmagazine.org/issue4/index.html#
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BIRD CAT MOON
'Bird Cat Moon' is a performance that translates the rise and fall of US domestic cat and native bird populations into a graphic score that is played by three musicians. The score’s structure is a based on a simple line graph. Its Y-axes equates the animal populations (as measure in millions) to the musicians’ pitch and movenment. Its X-axes equates the years of data collection (1970 – 2004) to the real-time duration of the performace (34 minutes).
Viola, accordion, and double bass play each line of data. The hand-drawn score is projected in a dark space with an overhead projector and is animated by slowly moving the score from left to right to show cycles of 34-year increments of population growth and decline. The musicians move back and forth through the audience as their corresponding graphic melodies rise and fall, transforming the data into a direct visual and aural experience.
Performed October 17, 2009 at the Lulu von Hagen Courtyard, CalArts by
Bobby Halvorson on accordion as Domestic Cat Population
Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir on viola as Native Bird Population
James Klopfleisch on double bass as Lunar Cycles
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