Skip to main content

for hyde park



This is a compilation of synth improvisations played with field recordings I've made from Hyde Park 2010-2012. I'm exploring performance set ups where I do not need to work from my laptop during performances. I'd like to step away from using my laptop temporarily for artistic, financial and security reasons. 

I've been exploring analog synthesizers and improvising with them since January of this year. Last year I was able to buy a Korg LittleBits synth kit from a radio shack that was going out of business. My initial interest was exploring ways I can incorporate this kit in installations with its clicks, drones and rhythms. My inspiration for these installations center around the work of Rolf Julius and African and Afro Caribbean Altars. 

Time passed and I didn't have a studio space anymore so I shelved that idea. However I was still listening and thinking about how I wanted my work to sound. An important thing to think about! I was not happy with how I was manipulating my samples on my computer. I wasn't able to use the midi controllers the way I wanted in a live situation and when I did i wasn't happy with the range of sounds I was getting from my mangled samples. So I experimented with my synth kit and found that the synths were easier and more fun to control and improvise with my field recording samples. 

At this point I should probably shed some light on the "in to the breaks" quote and how it fits in with my interest in dub processing and black subjectivity. The key term in the above quote is slippage. You're between nodes of time standing still and moving ahead. Slipping between being on beat or off.  I have used the sounds and processes of both dub and the many glitch genres that have popped up in art and music as a point of departure from the idea of slipping in to the breaks. 

But what about black subjectivity? Is my work about race? As far as black subjectivity goes, I think there is a slippage between an awareness of self and DuBois' double consciousness. The uses of echo, delay and other technology by reggae producers like King Tubby exemplify this idea that consciousness, identity and memory are fluid and synchronic. Bringing this back to my work. My field recordings (and sound walks) can be seen as performances that are then remixed and re-presented. Meaning that there is no fixed way of representing those actions. More on this later. 

One more thing. Is my work about race? Not all the time but I have to be conscious of place, memory and identity and how that affects race, gender and sexuality as I have to work with others who may not be like myself. More on this later.

    
For these sessions, I used arturia's microbrute analog synth, korg little bits synth kit, korg monotron delay, sony pcm m-10 and a behringer eurorack 602A mixer

Comments

Unknown said…
Man that Ellison quote is everything and some...you know that's exactly how I feel about and when I'm dancing...really enjoyed these sound pieces...I know our we almost worked together I'm sure our work will cross paths again...Cecil
February 9, 2017 at 5:50 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

World Listening Day - Soundwalks- Reflections

After participating in this year’s World Listening Day programs this weekend I began to reflect on what lead me to my involvement. I rarely talk about what exactly lead to my interests in soundwalks, soundscapes and composition, because I felt they were too personal. Especially when I’m talking about practices in sound art and acoustic ecology many deem as esoteric and inaccessible. But the roots of my practice came from a toxic climate of race, economics, violence, politics and place that we experience today. I moved from Chicago to Oakland, California in 1998 to study art in San Francisco at the height of the first dot-com boom. I was there to have time and space to be a better artist and for self-recovery. Unfortunately, most people I had dealings with there treated me as if I was there to take their spot in the art scene, take jobs, housing and opportunity away from them. All this, while still being treated as a degraded other, in particular being harassed by the Oakland Pol...
4 comments
Read more

Dal Niente + Norman Long

Dal Niente + Norman Long,  Friday, December 8, 2023 8:00 PM  9:30 PM Co-Prosperity Sphere3219-21 S Morgan Chicago, IL FREE Dear Friends Thank you all for your support this year. I am honored to have been invited to participate in Ensemble Dal Niente's program at Co-Prosperity tomorrow night. I'll perform a live mix of field recordings from Oakland, San Francisco, Redwood City, Yucca Valley, and modular synthesis exploring the transitions from contested space to alter destiny.   Set I: Ensemble Dal Niente Orlando Garcia,  Escher Variant 1  for flute, clarinet, harp, vibraphone Sarah Nemtsov,  Zimmer IV  for flute, piano, 2 performers, and electronics Set II: Norman Long text and image:  https://www.dalniente. com/all-events/2023/12/8/dal- niente-norman-long
Post a Comment
Read more
Earthly Observatory https://www.saic.edu/saic-galleries/exhibitions August 31–December 3 SAIC Galleries, 33 E. Washington Earthly Observatory explores how we sense, portray, and engage our deep planetary entanglements. Through crafted visions, close listening, and histories of conquest and protest, the exhibition examines the contested relations of ecology to economy, aesthetics to ethics that dominate our experience at one moment, and evades awareness in the next. Drawn from diverse practices across art, design, and the natural sciences, the works invite us to question the ways that we - as one among many earthlings - create our understanding of a manifold world. Featuring: Allora & Calzadilla+Ted Chiang, Jonas N.T. Becker, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Kelly Church, Xavier Cortada, Rena Detrixhe, Paul Dickinson, Mark Dion, Jeannette Ehlers, Terry Evans, Assaf Evron, The Field Museum Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies, Terike Haapoja, Paul Harfleet, Isao Hashimoto,...
Post a Comment
Read more