the harmonyblog

Those weeks that I spent deeply involved in the project seem so distant. They were strange, poignant days — brimming with expectation, panic, and joy. In the days since, life had pulled many of us in other directions. A few last courageous guardians (Bruce, Mary-Ann, Sarah, Matt, Sabri…) chose to stay and continue to fight to preserve it, but for me it was fading more into an abstract thing of memory each day.

But today afforded me an unexpected chance to visit the installation’s new indoor home in the Remis Sculpture Court, Aidekman Arts Center. What I saw was certainly humbled… but more important, it was humbling.

I say humbled because initially, one wistfully observes that here is a reduced version of the original vision, the great idea, pared down to bare essentials. Humbled by circumstance, by weather, and by that eternal culprit, bureaucracy.

But the longer I looked at it, the more I was struck by a growing sense of awe. Alone on a semi-deserted campus in a dimly lit gallery at dusk, the sound dial nevertheless resolutely hummed its steady meditation on Harmony. When I placed my hands on it, it responded cleanly and readily, just like before. Maybe even better — there were interesting sounds I had never heard before, images I had not studied. And — because of the indoor environment — the sound files seemed to play with much more assertiveness. You could really focus on the amazing fidelity of some of these recordings.

The making of a collaborative art piece is never easy — and most do not even make it past the incubation stage. As an art student, the originator of many bad/failed plans for amazingness, I know. But here before me was a testament to what determination, good faith, and a lot, a lot of deeply held convictions could accomplish. Despite the overwhelming odds and the unexpected challenge of suddenly cutting short the sound dial’s performance, the people behind this project found a way to be flexible, to adapt. Though I was hardly part of this last effort, I can say that I am proud to be involved in this project. And inspired.

I hope that, even if visitors don’t instinctively “get it,” even if they don’t really understand the concept behind the art, they will take away this one thing: in this newest reincarnation of the sound dial is a brave proof that a small group of people with verve and spunk can produce, against crazy odds, a real ingot of worthwhile beauty.

BEFORE

AFTER


(Click for bigger pictures.)

“It’s an auricle. It’s a machine that allows you to travel through space because it brings the spaces to you.”

Bruce Odland is on the library roof explaining to a group of curious students what the art installation that we are constructing is going to be. The responses are enthusiastic; satisfied with Bruce’s explanation, the students wander off the roof and to the rest of the campus.

In a world filled with mindless action and thoughtless consumerism that is based in the visual discourse pandemic to our culture, Harmony in the Age of Noise is an intentional soundscape that encourages human interaction and thoughtful listening.

Harmony in the Age of Noise has brought together various members of the Tufts community to interact with one another in ways they traditionally don’t, over technologies and methods of production that have never been seen before. The project is the result of collaboration between artists from NY and Boston, Tufts faculty, students, administration, and staff, students from the Boston area, and the faith and determination of the brightest lights on the planet.

As a piece of public art, the project’s site specificity and ability to create community has been conscious from its inception, through production and installation, and will hopefully continue to do so during its exhibition. The complexity of this project has meant much overtime work to complete - a year and a half project to be completed in a semesters time frame, relying heavily on student volunteers and other in-kind participation. The complexity means that the working concepts behind the project are mindfully worked into the process, and that the process itself is comprised of several different components.

Over the course of the semester, Bruce has been holding workshops with students at Tufts and at other community schools. These workshops, which he playfully calls “ear yoga exercises” are meant to encourage people to become aware of their sonic environment. For example, students are told to give themselves a sound to identify themselves with – a clap, a whistle, a chirp, a cough – they then close their eyes and, repeating their respective sounds, try to form a perfect circle using only the echolocative capacities of our sonic systems. It is incredibly surprising how accurate we can situate ourselves in relation to our surroundings using only sound. Surprising to us, maybe, but not to Bruce.

Still equipped with the hunter-gather sense of our ancestors, we homo sapien sapiens have an acute sense of hearing designed for survival. In today’s society, however, we are indoctrinated to tune out, to deafen ourselves for the sake of consumptive demands. Progressive this idea may be, in a world run by money, any thing that makes a noise is willed into creation as long as it can draw a profit. As a result, the noise floor of unintention has risen to dangerous levels. A linear production economy in an environment of increasingly limited resources is not sustainable, and our sonic reality is screaming at us to listen. However, what do we do? We turn on the television, our ipods, our cars, and we tune out the noises of a dying system. The working thesis behind this project is slowing down to become aware of our sonic environment.

After opening themselves to their sonic environment with Bruce, students then went out with hi-fi recorders and took samples – the school cafeteria, the computer lab, the subway, Davis Square. These student sound maps, referred to as psycho-acoustic maps because they reflect the individual sonic realities of the people making them, were collected, plotted on a geographic map, and then stored in a computer.

This computer lives in the sound dial - a conglomeration of cutting-edge technologies interfacing with one another for the first time. When people first hear “sound dial,” they think “sun dial.” Similarly shaped, the sound dial houses a computer and a compass and its head rotates three-hundred and sixty degrees. Instead of informing the individual of the time using the shadow of the sun, the dial uses the shadows of sonic memory to inform the individual of the local sound environment.

The sound dial will reside in the R.-Buckminster-Fuller-inspired-gazebo-sculpture designed by Mark McNamara. Six “J” structures swirling to form two equilateral triangles imposed upon one another in a Star of David, the sculpture uses mathematical forms to channel the electromagnetic energy of the cosmos. The structure was built with student and community volunteers, with the advice of sculptors and landscape artists, and the use of recycled sheets, cardboard, and wood.

Atop the highest hill in Boston, from the sound dial, one can see the entire city. As an individual approaches the sound dial, they will hear nothing. Underneath a parabolic dome, the sound of the dial will be encased in a channel of sound. This is the nature of the parabola; Creating a uniform gravitation field without air resistance, parabolic reflectors harness electromagnetic radiation to a specific focal point - in this case, the sound dial.

Under the dome, you can hear the monk chanting didgeridoo sounds of Boston Avenue. These sounds are streaming live from the tuning tube installation that Bruce and Mark placed atop the Brown and Brew several weeks ago, a piece of equipment invented by Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger (O + A) and used in several of their installations. The dial sings Boston Ave in the key of E. This is the default mode of the dial.

When you place your hands on the dial, the colors morph from blue to red, the sounds change, and images begin to appear in the whale’s eye center of the dial. The computer’s software activates. The compass locates the direction that the user is facing, and begins to pull up the sounds and images of the psychoacoustic student maps. The faster you move the dial, the less information you get. Move too quickly and you receive unintelligible noises and static images. The slower you move, stories begin emerge.

If the dial is facing Powderhouse rotary, the sounds of cars circling around will shroud you, and images of cars will appear in the whale’s eye. If you are facing Tufts’ computer lab, you will see students at the computers, and hear the clicking of keys. I created a spiritual sound map of Boston, which includes a full moon drum circle held by musician friends of mine in Jamaica Plain, as well as Kirtan at the Krishna Temple on Commonwealth Ave. If you have slowed down enough, as you cross from one area to the next, the sounds and images begin to cross-fade. To encourage human interaction, the dial’s colors and sounds react to the number of hands placed upon it.

Finally, the dial also has a clocktower function. When Bruce arrived at Tufts campus, one of the first things he noticed was that the church bell chime was missing some important notes. To him, the sounds were blatantly off, yet he was the only one to ever notice. Since then, he has been working with the organ player at the church to create his own chime, which will play at the opening. To make up for the missing chimes in the clocktower, the sound dial allows the public to upload their own sounds into the dial through this website, which will then be played on the dial the following half-hour.

As the opening date approaches, I would just like to congratulate all the fine and hardworking folk on this project for their valuable time and wonderful energy. The opening date is on April 23rd at 4pm on the Tisch Library Roof at Tufts University. I hope to see you all there.

for all photos, click here

in the eye of the whale, we see humanity,

or so they say.



the human aspect of projected reality

lost in the

powdered resin that coats my

lungs and hearts and souls

to the cross-breeze of actualized truths.



we deconstruct the codes of humanity

when sleepless nights become tiring days

when the words we do not speak

become digitalized and projected

into the universe

via

led lights and the electronic impulses

of the cosmos


the little engine that could

and old mcdonald take us through

e-i-e-i-o

the days that become nights

e-i-e-i-o

that become days that become nights

e-i-e-i-o


and the sky spits on us

and we catch it in buckets

and coffee pots

and hope that it is telling us something more

than what we think it means.


(let go, sir.)


be flexible,

like the sapling

that tore the cartilage from your finger.

when you had no control.


we are perfect light

trapped in imperfection.


we have lost sight of the eye of the whale

when we tell ourselves that

we are alone.


we are one.


we are supported by the strength

of old lions

and the bull

and the generosity

of those whose hands know

the pain of wood

when it runs through the heavy machinery

of man.


beauty is imperfection

because it reminds me of my own

imperfect soul.

The swell human beings over at “Living On Earth” aired a segment on our installation last Sunday morning.

 Click here to download the show and/or read the transcript!

Heidegger once said, “the boundary is that from which something begins its essential unfolding.” The nature of space as bounded is an interesting subject to dwell on, indeed. We imagine space as though it were a palpable essence, an autonomous entity separate from humanity. Space is man, and it is not man. The imagined space without is the projection of the space within. We do not exist within space. We are space. Space is the chord of light that connects mortals with divinities, sky, earth.

The cosmic forces that created and sustain our planet bound us to the earth in the key of E minor.

Our bounded world of darkness exists in opposition to an endless world of light. We are space; we are composed of both the darkness of this world, and the light of the other. Within these boundaries of lightness and darkness, in our ability to communicate our existence, we define ourselves as beings of thought. These light forces are composed of vibration - they are composed of sound. Sonic light forces are being more and more overwhelmed by the visual darkness pervasive to our culture.

We can manifest this light through the act of building. Building, creating boundaries, which in turn create spaces, is an act of dwelling. In building can we observe our bounded nature as mortals, can we communicate what it means to exist. Creation of these light spaces of existence, of sound spaces takes courage and honor.

We must not loose ourselves in the fourth dimension, we must not loose ourselves in the compression of time. Time forces us to focus on the mundane details; we become overwhelmed. Remember our courage and honor and that we are building a space of cosmic light and sound. The imagined energies within us are manifesting throughout this installation piece. Let us emanate light.

I’m on the freeway headed towards Chinatown, Boston with Bruce Odland, and we’ve missed our exit.

In a “visual culture just gone mad,” Bruce is a sonic thinker – a sound junkie, if you will. We live in a visually oriented society; and Bruce, as a representative for the sense of hearing, constantly has to translate. He explains, “I’m the minority. So I have to translate, because the visual people don’t translate. They say, ‘Oh, you’re a sound artist, great! Send me you’re a slides.’” He chuckles at the thought that sound can be captured visually. After spending some time with Bruce (his patient, quiet demeanor) and his ability to repeatedly and cogently explain complicated and foreign (and somewhat threatening) concepts, I believe that he has spent a lot of time translating.

When I say that Bruce is a “sonic junkie”, I mean is that Bruce misses freeway exits because he is more interested in what it sounds like getting to our destination than he is in actually getting to our destination. So we’re hurtling down the freeway at 65 MPH, with sound recorders and cameras in hand, trying to capture the sonic experience of the moment; and as a result, forsaking the visual. We have missed our exit, but we sound great doing it!

Our destination, when we actually do get there, is the Josiah Quincy Elementary School, where we are meeting a group of Brownies (the Girl Scouts, not the food) to give them a workshop in sound, and then have them record the sounds of their school. These sound recordings will then become part of the sound installation project that Bruce, along with a dedicated crew of talented individuals have been working on since this summer.

***

I’m wandering around a warehouse with a video camera while Mark is carefully delegating the construction of the gazebo to a large group of students. Bruce whizzes by me with a camera and an audio recorder. I record Bruce taking a picture; the interaction goes something like (or maybe it’s exactly like) this:

Me: Hey Bruce, how’s it going? I’m video recording you taking a picture, that’s like –

Yang: THAT’S SO META

Me: - That’s so meta! That’s just what I was going to say!

Bruce (head nodding emphatically, wide-eyed, huge gestures): Well, we’re going to put it in the sound dial, so then it can watch itself being made. And pretty soon there will be lots and lots of sound dials everywhere; they’re just going to be self-replicating. It will be like code gone wild, like nano-technology - but huge.

Me: Wow, you just took that like four levels further than I was going to, and that’s amazing.

Bruce: It’s feeding on itself, Sarah. It’s feeding on itself.

***

With a strip of plywood, I’m mixing aqua resin in buckets. With Mary-ann, we pour the pooridge-y mixture into candy-canes (the endearing term we’ve adopted for the j-forms of the gazebo), impregnating the cardboard-wood structures entirely. We delight in swearing when we just plain fuck up. Laughing and cursing as the resin slops over the sides and onto the hard, cold warehouse floor.

***

I’m in the machine shop with Bruce, watching the sound-dial being constructed. The dinosaur, mammoth, alien machines use mathematical precision to cut the dimensions to exact lengths that interface immaculately with one another. Bruce begins sound mapping, and I get lost in the vast knowledge surrounding this process of which I have none. I wander around the space with the curiosity of a small child, taking detailed pictures of patterns, until Bruce tells me it is time to leave.

When you try to give the processor of your brain too information to deal with in a short period of time, you begin to exhaust your biological bandwidth. Days blur together, events become a fragmented sea of experience. I need a break.

I knew a man once who gave the illusion of love without ever giving love. He was a clever man. This soundscape installation - once up on the library roof - will give the illusion of harmony and peace. Do not be fooled! Under the calm veneer lies a chaotic sandstorm of creative energy hurtling towards the focal sound dial in four dimensions, in Fibonacci form, at the speed of sound. It is a clever project. Entropy and darkness are trying to reign king over this project with their shadows of doubt. Luckily, we have an amazing group of light-filled warriors on our side; without whom, this project would be untenable.

The poorly ventilated, run down warehouse that is the site of construction has been graced with the presence of the most interesting, talented, dedicated, and beautiful individuals I have ever had the honor to work with. I would like to take a moment of time and space to show appreciation for and acknowledge those individuals:

AJ and Tom from facilities have granted us every possible wish and request we have bestowed upon them. Talented, highly qualified, and more than accommodating, without their skilled carpentry, construction would be at a loss. Facilities, along with OneSource crew, are some of the most underappreciated, hardest working and just all around fine folk on campus.

Larry McMaster is a man with a kind, wise, and youthful soul. He runs the Physics and Astronomy Machine Shop, Science and Technology Center at Tufts. This shop is equipped to build amazing technologies that I will never being to understand, and machinery that can be launched into the cosmos. His team, of whom I have had the pleasure of meeting Scott MacCorkle , has built us the “Sound Dial,” which is the home for all the psychoacoustic maps of the Boston area, as well as the amazing software interface for the project. These men do their work with joy, pride, and astounding precision.

As I sit writing this, Bruce Odland comes running down the stairs and into the clubhaus. He excitedly informs me that he’s working upstairs on the software for the sound dial and he’s got Oz and Luck on either side of him. Not that we aren’t channeling some otherworldly energy in bringing this project to life, but in a more grounded sense, Bruce is referring to Andrew Oswald, better known as Ozz, and Michael Luck Schneider. Ozz and Michael are very good at what they do. What they do is create the software that allows humans to interface with technology. Spending some time with these electronic gurus, it was like being in a different world – their language, electronic landscape, comfortability with computer programming, and wiring capabilities are impressive and intimidating.

Mary-ann Grenier is more myth than woman. Doe eyed and a sharp tongued, her large presence could put a rabid Doberman at ease. When Mark, Bruce, and yours truly were at our lowest, she appeared in a cloud of smoke (not really) with a first aid kit, sustenance, and ready to take on whatever task we needed done the most (really!). Since then she has been a continual source of support –physically, mentally, metaphysically and existentially.

Lynn Wiles and Paige Johnson are the lovely women of the anthropology department office. They have been burdened with a lot of the overflow of the project. In retrospect, this is a year and a half project and we’re doing it in two and a half months. If we liken this project to pouring two tons of water into a one-ton tank, Lynn and Paige are the women scrambling with buckets and pails running around trying to catch all the water that invariably spills over the sides. The tasks put onto them are not fair, and way more than they are paid to do, and yet they do them with dignity and grace. I have so much respect for them - as both a fellow woman, and as a co-worker.

Have you noticed how stunning, and well put together, and easy to navigate this website is? Tina and Yang are the talented students who have set up this lovely home for our project in the digital reality. They have been involved on the project in the analog as well – helping with construction of the gazebo, designing and making posters and stickers, and just being engaging and pleasant people.

Many thanks to Steve and Mike and all the students who volunteered their time outside of class to help put together the gazebo. We are also indebted to Tom Ryan and John Hadden without whose knowledge of structural engineering, we would not have a stable framework to dwell within. We are really honored by the donation of your time and energy.

Dawn R. Quirk is the hardworking woman who cleaned out the warehouse for us so that we could have space to build, to dwell, to think, to be. This woman also single-handedly coordinates the Jumbo Drop (former Dump and Run – the awesome second-hand sale on campus at the beginning of every academic year). She was a delight to talk to and I hope I get to work with her soon.

WMFO, Tufts Radio station and station manager Drew Frankel, thank you for allowing us to use your building to house the heartbeat-soul machine of the dial.

People from Living on Earth. Having ya’ll come out and interview us reminded us exactly why we were working on all of this. We are grateful for the experience of having you come out here, and to have us featured on your lovely show.

Also! Thank you to Buddy’s, Diesel Café, True Grounds, Addis Red Sea, East Asia, Blue Shirt Café, Mike’s, the Danish Pastry House, and everywhere else else we’ve eaten, for sustaining and nourishing our weary bones.

We are also grateful for tantric Buddhist monk chants, mathematics, spirit holes, meta beer, positively bright and helpful human beings, and divine inspiration.