Nancy Garcia’s interdisciplinary practice incorporates choreography, music/sound, video, performance, image making, and new media. Often slinging the viewer to the edges of performative events, Garcia draws attention to the exultant body, considering it as a site as well as a vehicle for sound and movement. For her first solo exhibition in Miami, Garcia shows a new body of work incorporating photography, a new video entitled Power Trio, and a concept audio compilation, Lover’s Alarm Clock, for which she asked artist friends to “create a sound you want your lover/s to wake up to.” Each track will be downloadable and sharable as a smartphone ringtone at www.loversalarmclock.com, and be available for listening in the gallery.

To coincide with O, Miami Poetry Festival, Garcia is creating an audio walk, an experiential sound journey guiding listeners through a select Miami location. The audio file will be playable on most smartphones and portable media players, and will be available along with a walking guide at www.omiami.org, www.basfisherinvitational.com and www.nancygarcia.org on April 15.

Nancy Garcia was born and raised in Miami, and has been based in New York since 2000. Her work has been shown at the Sculpture Center, Long Island City; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Roulette, NY; D’Amelio Terras Gallery, NY; De La Cruz Collection Project Room, Miami; New Langton Arts Center, San Franscico; Greene Naftali Gallery, New York; Movement Research at Judson Church. She has also been featured in festivals such as Images, Toronto; All Tomorrow’s Parties, United Kingdom; and No Fun Fest, New York. As a musician she has performed in the US and abroad with noise band Monotract, toured as a solo performer, collaborated with various artists including Thurston Moore, and released a solo album entitled “Be the Climb” on the Ecstatic Peace record label. In 2009 Garcia produced an epic interdisciplinary performance combining online video, and music from her album with choreography for the proscenium stage, commissioned by the Kitchen, NY. She holds a a Master’s degree from the Interactive Telecommunications program within New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Cinesonika: The First International Film and Video Festival of Innovative Sound Design is adding a conference component. We are seeking interdisciplinary contributions on sound in relation to the moving image. Media thinkers, film scholars, art historians, performance theorists, composers, filmmakers, sound practitioners, multimedia semioticians, philosophers of perception – we invite these and others to submit proposals for 20 minute panel presentations. All accepted submissions will be considered for inclusion in an edited volume (papers should be expandable to 3000-5000 words if selected for final essay publication).

When Submitting: Please write “Cinesonika- Paper Submission” in the subject heading :: The deadline for abstracts (under 500 words): July 31st, 2010 :: deadline for papers (for 20 minute panel presentations): September 15th, 2010.

Please submit your abstract and short bio both as an attachment (.doc or.pdf) and also pasted into the body of your email submission, to info@cinesonika.com.

Vortex is an interdisciplinary music project by composer / pianist Belma Beslic (AUT/SLO) and Viennese composer / sound artist Bernhard Gál (AUT). It deals with different aspects of temporal perception, and its implication for our human sensory and cognitive apparatus.

PROGRAMME: * B. Gal: 88 (for piano and light projection) * B. Beslic: Utopia Planitia (audiovisual composition) * B. Gal: relive (laptop performance) * B. Gal: textur#4 (audiovisual composition) * B. Beslic: Expanse (for piano and sound projection, premiere). Annelie Gahl – violin (Utopia Planitia)

Vortex is an interdisciplinary music project by composer / pianist Belma Beslic (AUT/SLO) and Viennese composer / sound artist Bernhard Gál (AUT). It deals with different aspects of temporal perception, and its implication for our human sensory and cognitive apparatus.

PROGRAMME

* B. Beslic: Hibernation (audiovisual performance, 2009)
* B. Gal: textur#3 (audiovisual performance, 2008)
* B. Beslic: Echo (composition for piano and video projection, 2008)
* B. Gal: textur#5 (audiovisual performance, 2009)

Music, Language, Thought is a new interdisciplinary event series organized by graduate students within New York University’s Music and Comparative Literature Departments. Broadly speaking, the series focuses on the relationship between music and language, and our speakers will examine its theoretical ramifications for politics, aesthetics and historiography. The project stems from ongoing conversation and collaboration between graduate students within these two departments, and will continue on an annual basis.

10am - 12pm

John Hamilton (Comparative Literature, Music and German; NYU): The Rape of Euterpe: Music, Philology, and Misology in the Work of Nietzsche — The pronounced distrust of verbal language throughout Nietzsche’s work, what Socrates scorned as “misology” in Plato’s Phaedo, correlates to a life-long devotion to music. A fundamental conception of music as the art of time — and hence of modification, alteration, and therefore instability or uncertainty — motivates Nietzsche’s singular contribution to philological method and subsequently his destructive zeal against all species of stabilized metaphysical images. What, however, would a “musical philology” precisely entail, and what are some of its ramifications? In what ways can musical sensibility and scholarly inquiry interact? To what extent is a “love of words” grounded in a deep mistrust of communication? Is it not the case that every philologist is, at least potentially, a misologist, an iconoclast, a music-making Socrates — a philosopher with a “third ear”?

Mary Ann Smart (Music; UC Berkeley): Rossini and Nonsense — The recent admission of Rossini’s music to the canon has been founded on an unusual basis: that of the music’s nonsensical qualities, its refusal of musical thought. Rossini’s preference for vocal fireworks over careful word-setting has been celebrated as prefiguring the pure musical patterns of absolute music, as privileging body over mind, and as reflecting the nihilism of post-Napoleonic Italy. This paper will situate these claims in relation to early nineteenth-century Italian thought about mimesis and musical expression, as articulated in contemporary encyclopedias of music, composition treatises, and pamphlets on musical aesthetics.

12-1:30 pm BREAK

1:30-3:30 pm

Jacques Lezra (Comparative Literature, Spanish & Portuguese; NYU): The Devil’s Interval — In Minima Moralia, Theodor Adorno writes: “‘I have seen the world spirit,’ not on horse-back, but on wings and without a head, and that refutes, at the same stroke, Hegel’s philosophy of history.” Adorno’s thought-image places “Hitler’s robot-bombs” alongside the images of Alexander’s corpse, Caesar’s murder or Napoleon’s exile in St. Helena’s, with the goal of “refuting” the Hegelian claim that at certain privileged moments “world-spirit manifests itself directly in symbols” [unmittelbar symbolisch sich ausdruckt]. It is a disquieting, searching image, and it is associated with Adorno’s running critique of the “immediate” presentation of aesthetic experience generally, and of “symbols” particularly. Nowhere does Adorno more emphatically treat the temptation, and the danger, of immediacy than in his writing on music, and in particular in his understanding of the function of rules and of rule-following in modern music. Can we derive a “philosophy of history” from these writings? What principles of change, internal to modern music, take the place of the direct, symbolic manifestation of world-spirit that one finds in Hegel? Edward Said’s late return to the concept of humanism arises from a symptomatic misreading of Adorno’s answer to these questions. (Said’s humanism may amount to a disavowal of the diabolical principles he encounters in Adorno’s work.) This talk approaches the problem through a discussion of the concept of “interval” that develops in Adorno’s account of Wagner and Schoenberg’s different responses to Beethoven’s rethinking of the so-called devil’s interval, or tritone (one might say: from Fidelio through the “Tristan” chord to Moses und Aron).

Branden Joseph (Art History and Archaeology; Columbia University): Biomusic – The onset of those operations collectively known as the “Global War on Terror” has brought to light the use of music by the United States as a component of physical and psychological torture, a topic which has given rise to a certain amount of discussion within musicological circles. Developing upon such discussions, this paper will trace the affinities of contemporary weaponized uses of sound to “biomusic,” a little-known development within advanced musical practice in the 1960s and 70s. Beyond the possible connections to contemporary techniques of abuse, the investigation will shed light on a number of transformations in the manner in which subjectivity, power, and signification have been conceived and engaged within the later part of the twentieth century.

Sponsored by the FAS Department of Music and the Department of Comparative Literature. With additional support from the NYU Humanities Initiative.

Organized by Michael Gallope, Daniel Hoffman-Schwartz, Magali Armillas-Tiseyra, Amy Cimini and Ceci Moss.

MIXER, Eyebeam’s event series dedicated to showcasing leading artists in the fields of live video and audio performance, interactivity and participatory practice, will have its fifth iteration on Friday, when Eyebeam will play host to an exposition of party pavilions. A cluster of autonomous structures, each built according to their own unified concept or theme, will take over our rough-and-ready warehouse space for a two-night extravaganza.

MIXER | EXPO is a temporary village, a taxonomic display of speculative technologies and revisionist ideologies, and a utopian vision that in turn critiques utopian visions that are too often concocted in an exclusionary cultural vacuum. Each pod-like pavilion functions as its own intimate node as well as part of the larger network of social environments sited throughout Eyebeam’s public spaces. MIXER | EXPO encourages artists, musicians, designers, architects, engineers, hackers, and cultural anthropologists to team up and create their own pavilions and performances to become part of our alternative “World’s Fair”.

Proposals must include the following:

1. A brief description of the theme or concept behind the pavilion or performance. Be clear about how your idea relates to the overall theme of the event. Please see the online application for word count requirements (URL is listed below).

2. Project documentation. This can include sketches, images, mockups, elevations, and/or video/ audio clips of the proposed work (the more specific, the better). Please see the online application for more information on file format and size.

3. Contact information for project leader and collaborators, including the roles each will play Applicants making proposals for a pavilion are required to assemble a team of skilled collaborators that will be responsible for the following: purchasing, building, and installing all structural or architectural elements; purchasing, building, and installing all technical elements that Eyebeam is unable to provide; maintain and manage the pavilion throughout the duration of the event with some support from the Eyebeam staff. (Please see more information regarding technical support below).

4. Requested dimensions. Proposals for pavilions and performances must include information about the amount of space requested. The maximum size is 400 square feet, but the size must to be flexible/shrinkable to accommodate the needs of the overall event installation.

5. A description of audience engagement. How will an audience engage with your pavilion or performance – is it interactive, passive, responsive, kinetic, participatory, etc? Will guests move around the space, sit, lounge, or dance? Please note:
pavilions can also have (and are in fact encouraged to have) a performance component as part of it.

6. A description of materials and technologies that will be used to construct your pavilion or performance. Special consideration will be given to proposals that use open source tools/software; use recycled, repurposed, salvaged materials; are self- powered or use alternative energy sources to power aspects of the work; and include a plan for the materials’ post-event (re)use that doesn’t consist primarily of throwing it in the trash!

7. A production schedule and itemized budget. Eyebeam is able to provide a $150-$1,000 stipend per project depending on needs to cover artist/designer fees and materials costs.

Technical Support:

Eyebeam will be able to provide some technical support and possibly some equipment depending on the needs of the overall event installation. This includes theatrical lighting, LCD projectors, DVD players, USB media players, small powered audio speakers or sound system, some computers, Ethernet cable, etc. Please be incredibly specific regarding your technical requirements so that we can try to accommodate as much as possible. But be prepared to provide and install all necessary technical equipment.

Production Timeline:

Monday, January 26, 11:59pm: Deadline for Proposals
Monday, February 2: Announcement of Accepted Proposals
Saturday, February 28, Monday, March 2 – Thursday, March 5 (10a – 6p):
Installation: TBD: Deinstallation date & time

How to Submit a Proposal:

Proposals will only be accepted online. To create and submit an application, please visit the website.

You will be able to edit the application up until the deadline (Monday, January 26, 11:59pm), so you are encouraged to start an application right away!

Any questions can be directed to Paul Amitai, Program and Events Coordinator.
EMAIL: paul AT eyebeam DOT org
PHONE: 212-937-6580 x234

Amir Lahav is a Visiting Scientist in Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School.

The Department of Music presents a year-long interdisciplinary lecture series entitled “Music and the Body” in the coming academic year. Broadly-conceived, the series is designed to inform contemporary and historical music-related questions concerning ritual and dance; display and gesture; gender and sexuality; and perception and memory. Through our choice of speakers and our active promotion efforts, we hope to draw audience members from Cognitive Science, Gender Studies, Theater and Performance Studies, and Anthropology. We also expect to attract members of the university and local communities who are interested in the social, physiological, and psychological aspects of contemporary musical practices. With this diverse group of speakers, we intend to inspire wide-ranging discussions focused on the intersections of performance, reception, ethnography, and the body.

Interaction: The relation between two or more relatively independent things or systems of change which advance, hinder, limit, or otherwise affect one another - (Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, 1901) Interactivity has become virtually a magic word for the promotion of new media and the media arts alike. The term refers not only to a certain technology, it also stands for social concepts and visions ranging from grassroots democracy all the way to consumer freedom. This imbues the term with its broad-ranging impact, but also contributes to its dilution.

This conference invites experts from different disciplines to examine the origins and applications of the various concepts of interactivity. It questions the extent to which interactivity should be considered a fundamental concept in the social and technological, cultural and artistic context, or as an outdated buzzword, useful only for the self-promotion of the different fields.

The idea is to contextualize the notions of interaction, interactivity and interactive art from a multidisciplinary perspective, including, sociology, information theory, interface design, game studies, art history and media art history. Whereas interaction originally described the reciprocity of influences, e. g. in biological systems, the concept was already applied to social interaction at the beginning of the 20th century. Around the 1950s, cybernetics employed the notion for a comparison of social, technological and physiological feedback processes. With the rise of digital technology, interactivity became a key paradigm of human-computer relations and interface design. At the same time, the importance of social interaction and active participation was emphasized within post-war society and the arts alike. In the framework of a thorough investigation of the often diverging concepts of interaction and interactivity stemming from these developments, the conference further invites a comparison and discussion of the heterogeneous interactive strategies of analogue and digital arts.

From Virtualities to Embodiment - Interaction Models in Media Art by Christiane Paul
I mistrust audience participation - Thoughts on Participation Art by Lars Blunck
Terms of Engagement: Interactivity in Visual Art Practices by Suzanne Lacy
Interaction and Interactivity - The perspective of communication sciences by Christoph Neuberger
Control and Freedom: Interactivity and Invasion by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun
Designing Interaction by Gillian Crampton Smith
Understanding Gameplay by Noah Wardrip-Fruin
From Surface to Interface - Neue Formen der Nutzerkunst by Peter Weibel
Interactive Art meets Biology by Arjen Mulder

LoVid is an interdisciplinary artist duo composed of Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus. Our work includes live video installations, sculptures, digital prints, patchworks, media projects, performances, and video recordings. We combine many opposing elements in our work, contrasting hard electronics with soft patchworks, analog and digital, or handmade and machine produced objects. This multidirectional approach is also reflected in the content of our work: romantic and aggressive, wireless and wire-full. We are interested in the ways in which the human body and mind observe, process, and respond to both natural and technological environments, and in the preservation of data, signals, and memory. For more, check out the recent interview with Thomas Beard and Zefrey Throwell: http://frankprattle.wordpress.com/.

Van Lengen’s current work focuses on the use of sound as a significant design component. Her designs mix environmental sounds into public and private space, often taking sounds from one space and playing or mixing them into another. Her most recent project is a collaboration with Joel Sanders Architects to create a sound installation within the newly renovated Campbell Hall, home to the UVA School of Architecture.

Peter Traub: Your 2003 paper co-authored with Ted Sheridan, “Hearing Architecture: Exploring and Designing the Aural Environment”, argues for a greater emphasis on sound and aurality as elements of modern architectural design. When and how did you become interested in sound and “designing the aural environment”?

Karen Van Lengen: I have always been sensitive to sound. I began to notice that my memories of certain spaces were not only visual but aural as well. For example Grand Central Station, or the National Gallery of Art in Washington. I was also influenced by Jean Gardener, who taught at Parsons and had a unique method for analyzing architecture. One of her criteria was sound and she helped bring my latent awareness into more focus. Ted Sheridan also taught at Parsons. He was both an architect and musician. He taught a special course using sound as a generating aspect of design. We began a dialogue that has continued for many years.

Diagram of Mix House by Karen Van Lengen, Joel Sanders, and Ben Rubin.

Peter: Are there particular structures or spaces, especially well-known ones, that you would consider great examples of aural architecture (even if hey weren’t designed with aurality in mind)? Could you tell us a bit bout them and what aural characteristics make them stand out to you?

Karen: There are many many spaces of the everyday that come to mind in my own experience however for this question I will offer only those known to the public. A few spaces that come to mind:

New York Public Library: Beaux Arts Library of 1910 by Carrere and Hastings on Fifth Ave. The reading room is one of New York’s heroic spaces both visually and aurally. Amidst the sea of desks occupied by the many New Yorkers who come to study read and work there is the oh so subtle sound of work – of books opening and closing of a few whispers – individuals in search of something personal and particular – united by the their collective desires to be there together sharing these personal pursuits collectively.

Grand Central Station: New York – the sounds of movement – of the beginnings and the ends of the days in the city – a city full of work, full of play, full of life – the sounds of direction and intention-purpose.

Palatine Hill in the Winter: few tourists visit the Palatine hill in the winter but because I lived in Rome I often went there to listen. To the special sound of the winter wind – as it moves through the ruins – it has a strange and eerie sound as if it were occupied – inhabited – it is a ruin that feels alive, particularly in the dead of winter.

National Gallery in Washington DC – 1941 – John Russell Pope: Here the interior fountains are located in strategic central spaces with domes to reflect their sounds. The art gallery corridors are arranged around these foci so that at the beginning and end of small sojourns through the building one has a complete understanding of one’s location based on the subtle sound of falling water.

Falling Water by Frank Lloyd Wright: of course the sound of falling water that is the major identity of the house, since it is built over a waterfall.

Villa Giulia in Rome: the movement through a series of highly articulated renaissance pleasure gardens that by a careful manipulation of the water and sectional play of spaces, offers the visitor an acoustical pleasure garden along the walk through the villa.

Sounds of footsteps in the dead of night in the winter in Venice: The fog can obscure ones vision and sometime it is only possible to hear the sharp definitive sounds of the unidentifiable echo from the nearby streets.

Hermann Goebbel’s Air Ministry Building located in the old eastern sector of Berlin: one of the few remaining Nazi buildings in Berlin. (1930′3) Here the sounds of heavy and directed footsteps along the endless and unforgiving corridors are highly accentuated by the reflective stone walls and floors. The sounds of people walking carry the overpowering sense of doom and fear.

Sounds of horses as they walk across a covered wooden bridge.

and so many more…..

Peter: How does increased consideration of aurality in the design process affect the design process itself and the structures that result? What are some of the technical challenges that you encounter in shifting the emphasis from purely vision toward a balance between vision and sound?

Karen: Designing with aurality is a challenge due to the process of measuring it in the design process. With visual studies we have developed many tools to study and delineate ideas including virtual and real models that include details such as shade and shadow or material and color studies in three dimensions. We don’t yet have easy tools to understand how sound will work in spaces. The idea of the model as a miniature replica of a room or a building does not work with sound. There are some very sophisticated software programs that acousticians use with virtual models to design concert halls, etc. however these tools are complex, expensive and not yet readily available in schools of architecture. I have found that teaching the awareness of sound, though not highly scientific, does promote awareness of the aural environment and helps students to begin to notice and record how other spaces and places work with sound. As technologies in this area continue to develop and become more accessible, I believe the interest in sound will become more important to architectural designers.

Peter: I ask this as much for my own work as for others: for composers, sound artists, and people interested in learning more about awareness of sound within an architectural context, what resources would you recommend?

Karen: There are many new books and articles that have emerged in the past few years as interest in sound grows. Without a whole bibliography I would give the advice of first learning how sound works – how it travels – how it reacts with space. There is an excellent short and uncomplicated book on the basic principles of acoustics by Robert Apfel, entitled Deaf Architects & Blind Acousticians. This is a compact guide to the principles of sound design. Then I would suggest that people simply listen – listen to spaces and try to record and remember those spaces that have significant aural qualities for them. Then to know why the aural qualities are transformative – what makes it so – space? Materials? Types of interacting sounds? I think this is the best way to learn about it.

Then one can read about the work of the small but influencial group of sound artists that opened up this territory seriously in the 1960s and 1970s like Bill Fontana, John Cage, Lietner, Alvin Lucier, etc.

Peter: How have other architects in the field responded the idea of the aural environment as a significant design consideration?

Karen: Until now there has been almost no interest in this theme. Lately however there is an increasing attention both in the disciplines of architecture and art. As recently as 30 years ago all architectural ideas and their documentation were made in paper form so any manipulation of sound could not be described in any experiential manner. In looking at published work one could see photos of the work but never hear the sounds of it. This made it difficult to describe any inventions related to aural qualities in a convincing way. Sound is now a regular feature of digital presentations and available on the web, so the field is ripe for discovery and development.

Peter: You collaborated with Joel Sanders and Ben Rubin on a project in 2006 called “Mix House”. We blogged about it last year and readers can learn more about it here. The house allows the inhabitants to mix outside sounds with inside sounds, process them, and play them back throughout the structure. What was the impetus for this project, and what has the response been like from the public, critics, and other architects?

animation of “Mix House” in action.

Karen: The Mix House was an opportunity to explore several themes:
1–The relation between sound and vision established by the large picture window. Modernism with its characteristic glass window walls exploited the large panoramic views of the exterior but isolated these views by negating their aural counterpart. This project effectively unified sound and vision again so that what was seen could also be heard.
2–The project also asks the inhabitants to begin to listen – to their environment – both the real exterior landscapes as well as mediated sounds of the interior.
3–The “mixing” of these sounds provided the opportunity for composition, play and for social interaction of the inhabitants. Learning to listen might suggest a different set of relationships within the family unit.

There has been widespread interest in this project especially with younger architects who are looking for dynamic means to explore the role of architecture in contemporary culture.

Peter: Although Mix House uses static physical design elements to influence the production, transmission, and reception of sound, it also makes extensive use of technology, such as computers, microphones, and speakers to control the aural environment of the house. How do you think about technology as it relates to designing the aural environment?

Karen: Actually the Mix House includes one moving picture window at the rear façade of the house that has the ability to track visual movement and sound simultaneously. The remainder of the house is static and uses new technologies to accomplish its goals. Technologies have, in a very short period of time, transformed how we relate to one another – email, cell phone, text messaging, etc. These will continue to evolve and shape our relationships. The Mix House uses technology to create a different set of relationships that demand the inhabitant to listen to a variety of experiential conditions that can be individual but can also be shared in an active way. This potential for listening and for dialogue is a very important aspect of this project and can be developed to accommodate public space as well.

Peter: What questions does a project like Mix House raise about the interaction of public and private sound? In Blesser and Salter’s “Spaces Speak, are you Listening: Experiencing Aural Architecture”, they discuss the concept of ‘acoustic arenas’, which are essentially the areas in which listeners can hear a sonic event because it has enough power to overcome background noise. Acoustic arenas can be created by structural boundaries, noise, social interactions, etc. It occurred to me that Mix House fundamentally plays with acoustic arenas, and through the sound/picture window and other means, mixes arenas that otherwise would stay separated, creating an interplay between public and private arenas. Is this interplay problematic in any way for you, or does it raise compelling questions? How have others responded to the mixing of arenas in Mix House?

Karen: The reaction at times is mixed. People ask, why do this? What I find compelling about the sound arenas is the “arena” quality – in which a space activated by sound allows the possibility for a new kind of social interaction – one that requires that the ears are free from headsets and cell phones – a space where friends or strangers can share a listening event – for me it carries the possibility of local and spontaneous interactive culture that I believe is important in today’s global-centric world in order to balance the displacement of the local and its habitat.

Peter: What have you learned from the process of designing Mix House in terms of the major aesthetic and design challenges that face architects who design for the aural environment?

Karen: When I started this work several years ago I thought that it might make sense to design the formal language of a space to reflect the way sound acts in space. I found this approach difficult and as I began to develop different ideas I came to the realization – working with Ben and Joel that instead of rejecting technology we might want to truly embrace its potential in shaping aural spaces. Formally, it is important to link conceptual ideas about space making with programs, sites and materials. Now I use the technology to reinforce these ideas in the shaping of environment – not to make a separate statement about it.

Peter: At the beginning of your answer above you describe this intriguing approach – of designing the formal language of a space to reflect the way sound acts in space – that ended up being difficult and not working out. While it is an avenue you ended up not pursuing, the concept sounds interesting to a non-architect like myself. Can you describe how this approach would ideally have worked, and also explain what the problems were that ended up making it unfeasible?

Karen: Basically with this approach one needs to collect and direct the sounds very carefully – something like an instrument. The structure can be too specific to one kind of soundscape or one location and can seem relentless – like living in an experiment with no visual or acoustical alternatives. I am more interested in the dynamic qualities of sound and associated shifting boundaries of space that work against this first model. Joel and I came to the realization that we could use technology to achieve significant results without turning the building into an instrument. However, I do believe there has to be a relation between the designed soundscapes and the architecture itself – these intersections can be subtle and fit within a larger spatial concept.

Peter: In terms of aesthetic preference, some artists who work with technology prefer the wires to both literally and figuratively hang out – that is, it is important to make the technology visible in a piece as it’s own sort of art object. Others prefer to hide the technology, making it as invisible and/or integrated into the environment as possible. It sounds from your answers above that you fall in with the latter group. How you think about the integration of technology with design – as within Mix House – in terms of it’s visibility and presence?

Karen: Correct, no need to show the wires, but there is a need to make the visual/aural connections clear and perceptible. So for example if we make a sound puddle installation in our Architecture School lounge and program it with the sounds of another space either inside or outside the building it is important to me to signify that relationship through orientation or visual connection so that the displaced sounds that compose the arena come from somewhere and are selected for a purpose. This I find interesting.

Diagram of the Naug Lounge Project by Karen Van Lengen and Joel Sanders Architects.

Peter: I know that you are very interested in Bill Fontana’s work (note to readers: Karen brought him to visit us at the University of Virginia this past March). How do you think your work and the notions of aural architecture relate to Fontana’s sound sculptures and vice versa? Do you consider his work influential to a project like Mix House? Are there other artists who you consider important or influential to your thinking about aurality and designing the aural environment?

Karen: I first came to know Bill’s work in the 1980’s. He had done projects in Berlin (Anhalter Bahnhof) Paris (Arc de Triomphe) and others that explored the power of sound to displace the immediate surroundings and also to connect places through sound associations. This displacement heightened the visitors awareness of place, and extended the limits of that place. I wanted to explore these ideas not so much for the purpose of displacement but rather as a unifying element that might bring landscape into spaces that had previously been cut off from it. This work taught me to think about my own projects in a different way. Also Alvin Lucier was important too. I have heard his piece, “I am Sitting in a Room” on several occasions and even performed it here at UVa with my students. It too is a ery powerful realization about how the voice interacts with spaces. Rooms have aural qualities that can be known by the interaction of the voice in the space to create a ‘tone’ for the room. Ted Sheridan, as I mentioned earlier, was a good colleague from Parsons during my early interest in this field. And finally David Hykes, founder of the Harmonic Choir was also a guest lecturer at Parsons. He taught the students how they could interpret the space of the room through harmonic chanting. So there have been many people who have been influential in my interest and development of sound and architecture.

Peter: Do you have other projects currently in the works that focus on the aural environment, and if so, could you tell us a little about them?

Karen: Joel Sanders and I have are working on the design of the central space of the architecture school at the University of Virginia. The project uses sound spaces that are integrated into the design of the room with a specific program. These spaces are defined more by sound than by traditional materials and have the capacity to listen to various places both inside and outside the school. This center will become the public space of our building and hopefully become the space of interaction and dialogue stimulated by these sound puddles.