Suzan Sherman: In the past your work has focused on the natural world, and toying with the intricate and seemingly set systems within that world. But for this project, The Marfa Jingles, you’ve honed in on Marfa, Texas — the systems of shops and business and organizations that are this tiny town’s glue. Like some of your other work, your jingles seem to be an attempt at organizing and arranging (you’re literally arranged the music and the lyrics for them). At the same time, I would have never expected you to come up with a project of writing and producing a series of audio advertisements. How did this idea come about for you?

Nina Katchadourian: I’m often looking at the natural world, but just as often I’m looking at the human and social world. The Marfa Jingles looks at the town as a social structure — as a place where people live, work, and run businesses and organizations. I’ve kind of collected Marfa, and used the project as a vehicle to get to know the town. I think of it as not so far from my project Office Semaphore, and other public pieces that I’ve done that look at the rather mundane fixtures of everyday life. The jingles I’ve made are now being played on Marfa Public Radio — they’re in the public space, which is on the airwaves, where the people of Marfa and all of west Texas can hear this stuff.

And although I do use the term jingle, which is a form that we associate with advertising, when you hear the songs I think that it becomes evident that they aren’t ads at all. I’m using the term very loosely. The jingles are more like little sound-songs portraits of various public-service clubs, organizations, and stores. I’m doing something that when taken collectively provides a cross-section of this tiny place in Texas. I don’t really feel like I’ve been writing advertising; I feel like I’ve been writing songs and cross-pollinating them with the jingle form. “From An Interview with Nina Katchadourian: by Suzan Sherman, NYFA Current.