Turbulence Commission: Spectral Quartet — by Woody Sullender — is a web adaptation of the project Whispering Spectres, which will be installed at Turbulence @Pace Digital Gallery 2, April 5-29, 2011.

The audio content consists of filtered radio signals, culled from various web streams from the Internet. These signals are being passed through many “band pass filters”, a type of equalizer that allows a small range of frequencies through while attenuating frequencies outside of this range. In effect, most of the audio signal is “erased” except for a narrow stratum of frequency material. This work highlights small, hidden musical moments that are occurring on radio, but are usually rendered inaudible by other elements in the sound.

Although the Internet can bridge disparate communities, our experience on the web is of a customized landscape, with content tailored to our ideological views, our shopping behaviors, our socio-economic demographics, etc.. Spectral Quartet literally re-unites these voices into a singularized, aestheticized, quiet moment.

Spectral Quartet is a 2010 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., for its Turbulence web site. It was supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

BIOGRAPHY

Woody Sullender is an artist currently based in Brooklyn, NY, working primarily in music and audio media. Over the past few years, he has emerged as a pre-eminent experimental banjo performer, playing with and against the cultural baggage of the instrument. More recent work focuses on “erasing” existing audio by removing most of the frequencies from a recording via band-pass filters. This has manifested in a range of media from a lathe-cut record of a diminished “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to an FM broadcast of erased radio stations. Among other activities, he teaches new media in the New York area and hosts a weekly radio show on WFMU.