INSTALLATIONS 2010

(GO BACK to the archives for the 2010 MEGAPOLIS Festival in Baltimore)

Frequent Mutilations – Andrew O’Connor


Photo credit: Dennis Conrow

Frequent Mutilations is a performed installation that celebrates one of the longest running radio art programs in North America. Four reel to reel machines weave together a series of giant analog tape loops. Each loop is of a different duration and every few minutes one of the loops is brought down, and a new one is spliced live into the mix to create a slowly evolving, slightly random composition, much like the radio program that inspired it. For about 25 years CKMS FM a small campus radio station in Waterloo (just outside of Toronto) broadcast a weekly hour long radio art program called Frequent Mutilations that produced by a rotating cast of programmers. This installation is both a new incarnation or live version of the program, and a celebration of the 1000 plus hours of original radio art produced for the show.

A recording of the installation, with a brief introduction from Andrew O’Connor:

Recording: Maria Papadomanolaki for free109point9 (download)


Video shot by MEGAPOLIS artist Andy Cavatorta

Little Sounds – Shelly Blake-Plock

This sound experiment was about little sounds. Sounds that otherwise go unnoticed. Participants were presented with small natural sounds and then had the opportunity to reflect on what they heard. Their reflections were recorded and turned into a sound collage over the course of the festival.

Mutator – Lea Bertucci & Ed Bear


Photo credit: T. Foley

The MEGAPOLIS installation Mutator is a work generated by the process of transferring a musical performance across boundaries of medium, time, and space. Initiated by a series of compositions for expanded woodwinds and electromechanical percussion, the installation crystallizes onto two tape loops which are broadcast on separate site-specific commercial FM radio stations. The percussion (bass drum, snare drum, and cymbals) is played by simple solenoid-driven mechanisms which are controlled by firmware algorithms. The mic’d and mixed down percussion generate rhythms and effects while reacting to input sources (audio signals, sensors, and triggers). A sculptural multitude of radios installed in the space continuously echo the aural impression of the performance while the drums play on. The drum machine listens to all three FM stations, reacting to the tape loops and the sound of its own making; slowly and organically evolving with in the installation soundscape.

A recording of the installation with a brief introduction by Ed Bear:

Recording: Maria Papadomanolaki for free109point9

North Avenue: NOISE – Steve Bradley

North Avenue: NOISE was sound art composition that used the windows of the Windup Space as a large tympanum, picking up the vibrations from the street and transmitting the sounds through a series of multiple FM transmitters and receivers, creating a feedback loop. Through each transmitter this low power radio piece rebroadcasted the signal to the next transmitter at 4 different frequencies over the FM dial. The final transmission was remixed into the original sound from the street windows creating a slightly off synch or “double image.” Periodically, beat frequencies emerged from the broadcast airs depending on the amplitude from the streets. The final transmission saturated the airwaves on the corner of North Avenue and Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland, with a checkerboard pattern.

Poop + Memory – Big Shed


Photo credit: Jennifer Deer

All weekend long at MEGAPOLIS, participants didn’t even great a break from audio art while relieving themselves. In the ladies room of the Windup Space, one could hear reflections on memorable bathrooms, johns, toilets, outhouses, waterclosets, loooos and potties (and improvised locations) broadcast from above. Attendees (and whoever is reading this right now) were (are) encouraged to leave their own stories behind. Just pick up a phone, and call the Poopline – (888) 921-4224. Check out some of the collected Poop Memories at www.poopandmemory.org


Video from MEGAPOLIS artist and Big Shedder Jennifer Deer

Republic of Nynex - Matthew Kane


Photo credit: Andrea Silenzi

The Republic of Nynex is an audio art installation that uses genetic programming to create audio compositions using audience-submitted raw audio. The name derives from NYNEX, the company formed by the merger of Baby Bells New England Telephone and New York Telephone. The Republic of Nynex as a fictional state could be thought of as the northern segment of the independent BosWash in some dystopian post-US future.

A Sense of Space – Thomas Deuel

raj

This piece consists of two sound installations, juxtaposing found sounds with abstractions of travel photographs. When traveling, most people take photographs and use them to communicate a sense of what the experience of being in that place might have been like. However, the acoustic environment - recorded via ‘phonographs’ - can provide a tremendous amount of the sense of place and feeling of a location in a different way than photographs. Here, musical soundscapes replace photographs. The first piece comes from sounds collected in Rajasthan, India - the basic rhythmic figure comes from a third class train. Other field recordings that make up the melodic and harmonic components of the song include rickshaw horns, Hindu chants, monkeys, and Muslim calls to prayer.

Installation excerpt - Rajasthan, India:

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The second piece comes from the Indian Himalayas - the basic rhythmic figure is also a local train providing transportation. The minimal visual presence in the pieces intentionally provides only a suggestion of the place: shifting blurry and abstract images, initiating a subconscious suggestion of what the place may look like. The listener then must use the sonic environment to create a sense of place.

Installation excerpt - Indian Himalayas:

Silosphere – Rebecca Bray & James Bigbee Garver


Photo credit: T. Foley

A Silosphere is a personal audio and visual experience. The user places a large globe over his or her head, blocking their vision. A small video camera is mounted on top of the globe. The inside of the globe is black; in front of the user’s eyes is a small screen which displays the view from the camera. The only way for the user to see in front of him/her is through the small screen. Speakers inside the globe transmit a personal spectrum of ambient textures, beats, and melodies to the user. With the Silosphere on one’s head, the user arrives in front of a large mirror and experiences - via the small interior screen - video images reflected onto the sphere, pulsing in harmony with the interior soundscape. The Silosphere explores ideas around the science of mediated experience, radiation, sonic projection, and electromagnetism.

Composition contained in the piece by James Bigbee Garver:

Brief introduction to the piece:

Recording: Maria Papadomanolaki for free109point9

Symphonic Stitch – Laure Drogoul


Photo credi: T. Foley

Symphonic Stitch is a listening parlor in which the participant is invited to experience the sonic rhythms of knitting both visually and aurally.

Laure Drogoul is an interdisciplinary artist and cobbler of situations who lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Her artworks are a hybrid, combination of video, sculpture and performance that invite audience participation. She is founding director of the The 14Karat Cabaret, Maryland Art Place’s performance space and cultural laboratory where she presents performance, music, film and hybrid acts of all sorts.

A Thousand Voices – Ioana Jucan, Quyen Ngo, & Ryan Lester

quyen
Photo credit: Andrea Silenzi

What would the world sound like if every time the question “How are you?” were asked, it was answered truthfully? ‘A Thousand Voices’ is a sound installation presented by Brown University’s Listening LabOratory radiophonic performance group. Inspired by artists who, in their desire and passion to create a “new world” during the revolutionary period in Russia (roughly 1918-1923), made buildings and public spaces speak to convey their messages to the public, the Listening LabOratory wanted to use sound art and technology to give individuals the opportunity to share their hopes, dreams, anxieties, and aspirations. At MEGAPOLIS, the voices of people from different places and of different ages answering the question “How are you, truthfully?” was transmitted through hundreds of piezo speakers using wooden poles as a medium for the sound. The installation used the guiding metaphors of “home” and “borders” to form a community of voices in a unique aural experience.

A recording of the piece with introductions by Ioana Jucan, Quyen Ngo and Ryan Lester:

Recording: Maria Papadomanolaki for free109point9

The Thunder Wheel Array – Neil Feather


Photo credit: Stephanie Smith

Thunder wheels make the sounds of rolling thunder. First a bicycle wheel has its tire studded with 10 to 30 strong magnets. Then a drumhead gets a magnet sandwich mounted towards the center of its head. The wheel is mounted to the drum such that the wheel magnets repel the drumhead magnets as the wheel magnets spin past. The wheel is spun and it sounds like thunder.

Five Thunder wheels of varied design were installed so that viewers can interact with the Thunder wheels and create sonic weather. (Made possible by generous generosity of Velocipede.)

Performance featuring three Thunder Wheels:

Recording: Maria Papadomanolaki for free109point9


Video shot by MEGAPOLIS artist Andy Cavatorta

wake-making: ceremony of a polyrhythmic biogram – Melissa Moore


Photo credit: Stephanie Smith

This installation creates moments that are in transport and go between re-articulations and potentialities, an “abstract machine” of sorts, one that is unstable and contains a spatiotemporal duplicity. With the use of traditional African ceremonial drumming music and invented polyrhythm machines, Moore employed a technique that shifts layered polyrhythms into abstract polyrhythms that are biogrammatic in nature; a language of the body that brings external realities into the internal field. The installation consisted of polyrhythm machines that employ gear motors, actuators, contact microphones and battery controlled speed motor controllers.

Melissa Moore on Aural States by David Carter:

Photograph and recording by David Carter for Aural States.


Video shot by MEGAPOLIS artist Andy Cavatorta