Orthographics (2009)
for solo performer
Sound in this piece is entirely generated by the action and object of handwritten text. As writing exists both as the physical object and also a symbol of something else, here too music is formed through the interplay of immediate and abstract sound.
Untitled 3 (2008)
for electric violin, frequency shifter, and motion control system
This piece utilizes accelerometers built into the violin and bow to control manipulations of the violin’s sound.
The Dream Window (2009)
installation
The audience enters a completely dark space through a thick curtain. Ahead they can see absolutely nothing. A thick layer of soft and somewhat indistinct sounds can be heard in the dark: perhaps waves, footsteps, an engine, whispers, various rumblings, all with a strange and shifting sense of space and resonance. After a few moments of waiting in this void, one’s eyes adjust, and a faint white glow becomes visible on the wall that apparently stretches out on their right side. Encouraged to take a few steps forward, one can see to the left a small window in the darkness from which this light emanates. In this window one sees a bright and luminous image composed of a multitude of textures and shapes. As the eye focuses on a particular object in the image, it flickers out, and others replace it. The eye shifts again, each time altering the content of the image. Still accompanying this are the same sounds before.
More than any other sense, our eyes exist in a feedback loop of sensation and action. Visual stimuli draw our eyes well before their apprehension by our consciousness, and even as we can control our eyes consciously, such an action requires we turn inward and, paradoxically, remove ourselves from what we are seeing. This installation places before the viewer a similar model of sensation and action, as its shifting auditory and visual stimuli respond to the motions of the eye itself.
video (h.264)
Duet for Eyes (2008)
installation
A large, shrouded object on four legs stands in the center of a courtyard. It is about ten feet long, four feet wide, and six feet tall at the tallest point. At the front, light comes out of a small hole, near which are hanging a pair of headphones. The audience can look into this hole; they see a magnified, monochrome, moving image of an eye, looking in different directions, but this image does not mirror their own eye. If they put on the headphones, sounds can be heard. Some of the sounds only play when the viewer moves their eye; they seem to change frequency and timbre with motion as well. The other sounds are very similar, and further examination reveals that they are correlated in the same ways with the motion of the eye on the screen.
video (h.264)
Elsewhere (2010)
installed video
Based on a set of field recordings (audio and video) made of the route in Oakland I walked regularly in the spring of 2010, and composed to reflect the thought processes of listening, reflection, and imagining that accompanied these walks. Originally exhibited at the Climate Theater in San Francisco, this video was projected as a seamless loop onto the wall of a neighboring building and only visible through windows, while urban ambient sounds contributed to the soundscape.
video (h.264)