Listening Gallery (2011–2015)
Public sound-art platform and site-specific installation
Approximately 180 feet along the façades
of 800–810 Lincoln Road and Meridian Avenue, Miami Beach
Eight-channel field duplicated across sixteen full-range speakers, with four subwoofers
Preview: November 5, 2011
Official opening: December 2, 2011
Operated through May 12, 2015
Listening Gallery began with an invitation from ArtCenter/South Florida to create a sound installation for the façade of its building at 800 Lincoln Road. The installation was also intended to draw attention to the ArtCenter and invite people walking along Lincoln Road to discover the art inside.
The available production budget, however, was not sufficient to realize a work at the scale the site required. Because the artistic possibilities depended upon what equipment could be secured, I was not prepared to design a piece around resources that remained unknown. Instead, I proposed involving the Subtropics Organization to raise additional support and turn the opportunity into a sustained investigation of how sound might be presented in public space.
The proposal extended an idea discussed with artist-advisors during the Subtropics 20 Festival in 2009: if people were not coming to experimental music, perhaps we should bring the music to places where people already gather. Listening Gallery placed that idea within the daily life of Lincoln Road.
THE LISTENING SYSTEM
The completed system extended for approximately 180 feet beneath the awnings of the ArtCenter’s Lincoln Road and Meridian Avenue façades. Eight channels fed eight speakers along Lincoln Road and were duplicated through another eight speakers along Meridian Avenue. Four K-Array subwoofers supplied the lower frequencies.
The full-range speakers faced downward at a slight angle, reflecting their sound from the wall before it reached the pedestrian walkway. The equipment remained largely concealed, allowing the sounds to be encountered before their source—or even their status as art—became apparent.
Listening Gallery was not a surround-sound system. It did not arrange sound around a stationary listener or converge upon an ideal listening position. Its image extended along two façades and around a corner. Pedestrians entered it from different directions, heard only part of it at any moment and changed their relationship to the work as they moved.
Each Lincoln Road speaker had a corresponding speaker somewhere along Meridian Avenue, but the two façades did not always follow the same sequence. Their directions could be reversed so that moving sounds met at the corner, departed from it or traveled toward the far ends of the building. At other times, separate groups of speakers carried independent fields of activity.
A computer-based patching system allowed different configurations to be designed within the limits of the amplifiers and sent the resulting signals to a multichannel audio interface. Some works used files in which the spatial behavior had already been composed. Others were distributed or spatialized through the system during playback. Separate quad files could also occupy different trajectories without sharing the same speakers.
Because of the distance among the speakers, duplicated sounds were seldom perceived as two simultaneous copies. The field did not contract toward the listener; it dispersed through the architecture.
A PUBLIC LABORATORY
Listening Gallery became a platform for experimenting with the presentation of sound in public space. It was both my site-specific project and a context through which other artists could investigate the same question.
Sometimes I created a new work. Sometimes I invited an artist whose ideas appeared particularly suited to the site. At other times I adapted an existing composition or selected materials from the Subtropics archive to create something new for the system. My role shifted among artist, curator, exhibition designer, coordinator, technical director and facilitator. In every case, I tuned the final work for its presentation along the façade.
Each exhibition played continuously, twenty-four hours a day, for the duration of its presentation. The interval between works was usually no longer than half a day, during which the next installation was loaded, tested and tuned.
The program developed organically. While one work was running, I could listen to its interaction with the architecture, weather, traffic and public activity while preparing the next experiment. The seasons were therefore not predetermined curatorial packages; they accumulated from the questions and possibilities revealed by the work already in place.
Several months after the inauguration, while creating Sounding Thru Empty Words IV for the John Cage Centennial in 2012, I mapped resonances along the façade. That investigation revealed eight distinct acoustical zones. The resonant information became material for my own subsequent works, but it was not imposed upon the work of other artists.
PREVIEW AND OPENING
FM: Awning, created by Frozen Music, previewed Listening Gallery during Sleepless Night Miami Beach on November 5, 2011. Sleepless Night was a one-night event, although the installation may have remained active for several additional days.
The official opening followed on December 2 with Russell Frehling’s Art Is Not a Commodity. The work established an important premise for the platform: sound could remain delicate and closely connected to the existing environment while still changing how that environment was heard.
FM: Awning was presented again for a longer period approximately one year later.
FACE2FACE
Face2Face was a parallel project created in collaboration with Charles Recher. Two glass windows facing one another on opposite sides of the ArtCenter’s main entrance were activated by portrait-oriented video monitors installed immediately behind them. The images were generated inside the building but viewed from the exterior façade.
Together, Listening Gallery and Face2Face extended the ArtCenter’s activity into public space through sound and moving image, while retaining different identities and modes of presentation.
FROM LISTENING GALLERY TO AUDIOTHEQUE
At the opening of Listening Gallery, María del Valle—then beginning her tenure as Executive Director of ArtCenter/South Florida—asked why we should not establish a sound-art center within the ArtCenter. That conversation planted the seed for Audiotheque.
The two projects eventually approached listening from complementary directions. Listening Gallery moved outward, meeting people within the unpredictable activity of public space. Audiotheque moved inward, creating a place for concentrated listening, experimentation and artist residencies.
Materials developed through these projects continued to circulate. In 2017, nine works originating in Listening Gallery and Audiotheque residencies were adapted for LISTEN, an exhibition presented at ArtCenter/South Florida with an installation by Freddy Jouwayed.
PROGRAM ARCHIVE
PREVIEW | 2011
November 5, 2011
FM: Awning
Frozen Music: Rene Barge, David Dunn and Gustavo Matamoros
Presented during Sleepless Night Miami Beach
INAUGURAL SEASON | 2011–2012
December 2, 2011
Art Is Not a Commodity
Russell Frehling
December 22, 2011
Glee
Holiday-themed adaptation curated from the Subtropics Collection
December 28, 2011
London Fix
Listening Gallery adaptation of a work by Tom Hamilton
February 1, 2012
Thresholds & Fragile States in the Sea of Cortéz
David Dunn
April 6, 2012
Prism Break
Rene Barge
May 5, 2012
Experiment 1: Glade(S)cape
Gustavo Matamoros
May 5, 2012
Face2Face: Rodrigo Arcaya
Rodrigo Arcaya
June 23, 2012
Experiment 2: The Most Radiant Words Were Spoken to My Inner Ear
Gustavo Matamoros
August 6, 2012
Experiment 3: La Asunción de Remedios
Gustavo Matamoros
September 1, 2012
Water Walk
John Cage Centennial adaptation presented at 924 Lincoln Road
September 5, 2012
Sounding Thru Empty Words IV
John Cage and Gustavo Matamoros
Created for the John Cage Centennial
SEASON 2 | 2012–2013
October 19, 2012
Acoustical Transpositions in a Single Architectural Space
Works by Rene Barge, David Dunn, Russell Frehling and Gustavo Matamoros
Presented remotely at The Nightclub
December 1, 2012
Radiance 2
Listening Gallery adaptation of a work by Armando Rodriguez
January 16, 2013
Sin Ninguna Imperfección
Listening Gallery adaptation of a work by Gustavo Matamoros
April 1, 2013
Aomori Water
Listening Gallery adaptation of a work by Phill Niblock
May 1, 2013
Paper Weather Instruments
Listening Gallery adaptation of a work by Alison Knowles
June 1, 2013
PUNTO: Flow
Gustavo Matamoros and Armando Rodriguez
Presented in association with Patterns of Behavior
SEASON 3 | 2013–2014
November 15, 2013
Distant Bats
Gustavo Matamoros
February 27, 2014
Experiment 4: Strong Wind Advisory
Gustavo Matamoros
May 1, 2014
From Four Micro Worlds
Adaptation of a Subtropics Collection work by David Dunn
May 15, 2014
Experiment 5: 1: Wet Season—Mosquitos
Gustavo Matamoros
August 1, 2014
Not Art
Adaptation of a Subtropics Collection work by Russell Frehling
September 1, 2014
Untitled
Rene Barge
September 26, 2014
Diagonal y Florida en la Florida
Santiago Perezón
SEASON 4 | 2014–2015
November 22, 2014
Walk–Run
Charles Recher and Gustavo Matamoros
February 18, 2015
F.L.U.T.E.
Robert Dick and Gustavo Matamoros
Presented during Subtropics 23
April 1, 2015
The Use
Interpretation and adaptation by Chris Mann and Gustavo Matamoros
May 1, 2015
Interstate
Esther Mañas and Arash Moori
TESTIMONIALS
“The Listening Gallery is a sonic oasis on Lincoln Road. The experience keeps changing according to what is going on around, expanding or contracting in its reach, shifting in mood. It’s too complex an interaction of sounds in space to ever figure out completely, but I love to listen closely to each exhibit to try to get a deeper sense of what is going on” — Jennie Gottschalk, author of the book Experimental Music Since 1970
“A big challenge for anyone working in contemporary art is, of course, to balance issues of accessibility and audience development with the desire and the mandate to present and support experimental advanced art production. This challenge is exponentially more pronounced in the context of public art, as opposed to institutional contexts. It is in the sense of this balance that the project is particularly successful. It is especially effective because, being non-visual, its effect is unexpected, a surprise; by the time one realizes it’s an artwork one has already experienced it. This is very valuable in public art because the subject experiences the work before he/she has had time to make up his/her mind about it, and before he/she has had time to put up a psychological wall” … “Lincoln Road is the most public, densest pedestrian area in the whole city, so in terms of the level of “engagement” this project can’t be beat. At least in terms of numbers of participants and the amount of acoustic material” — Rene Morales, Associate Curator, PAMM
“Because of the Listening Gallery Project, the ArtCenter South Florida has become a much more dynamic environment, and from the outside! The first thing one encounters upon nearing the building is the sound emanating from under the awnings of the building. It is such a surprise to encounter that it literally will stop people in their tracks! The ArtCenter has added a new dimension, literally, to their program that consisted mostly of visual artists studios. I am assuming that the general public may not always understand exactly what’s going on when they first encounter the Listening Gallery. This is the magic of it however! It is completely unexpected, and therefore, foreign. I think the first reaction is to pinpoint the origin of the sound and then to try to understand what it is that is being heard. I also think it is very impactful to come across something like this, where there is nothing quite like it anywhere, especially considering the environment of Lincoln Road on Miami Beach.”—Kristen Thiele, Artist, Board Member, ArtCenter South Florida, now known as Oolite Arts
“I found it to be a very engaging and satisfying experience. Mr. Matamoros and his staff were supportive, clear in communicating their vision for the Listening Gallery and very knowledgeable about my work and what I might bring to the site. They encouraged me to develop my own concepts and solutions to the venue they had developed. Opportunities like this are becoming more and more rare. I believe it is important that the general public be able to interact with an artist’s work outside of the normal commercial gallery or formal museum settings. This site really allowed a great cross-section of folks to take advantage of the venue by simply wandering through it as another aspect of an already popular district. My work deals with sound as a sculptural material. For this installation specific sounds from the surrounding ambient noise are recorded then digitally encoded. From these samples extremely short segments, a few thousandths of a second long, are extracted and looped in such a way as to render them essentially static instantaneous slices; the way that a photograph has the ability to freeze a subject in motion. These waveforms are distributed along a line of sixteen loudspeakers that form a sound-field along two faces of the Art Center building. I’ve further distilled from these waveforms only the uppermost spectral components. What is left are these delicate ethereal timbres which have been inconspicuously layered on top of and interact with the real-time ambient noise in curious and unpredictable ways. Firstly, the setting is very special. Secondly, by having a very sophisticated sound system already built-in to the site made projects like this even possible. By having this infrastructure different artists can design and create unique works for the system, while saving a tremendous amount of logistical effort and expense. I understand that mine was the first commissioned work in the series and so was part of the inevitable “de-bugging” process that happens with new complex systems. That said, everyone involved combined their efforts and considerable experience to get things sorted out relatively quickly and smoothly. It was ready for the opening and ran well for the entire scheduled period. I understand the piece generated quite a bit of interest while getting along well with the neighborhood. It was a very satisfying experience all around and I was quite pleased. I expect the normal refinement that takes place as one gets more experience with the system will lead to incremental improvements. This piece is very delicate so subtle control over balance is important to me. I always enjoy watching folks discover and get drawn in to that, ‘artificial’ layer of sound I’ve generated over the ordinary ambient noise of the site. I’ve heard many times over the years how my sound installations have helped them discover the wonder in the mundane noises that surround them”—Russell Frehling, Miami Beach-born Sound Artist
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Listening Gallery was created, designed and curated by Gustavo Matamoros with fundraising, production, architectural and technical support from the Subtropics Organization.
The project was made possible with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation through the 2010 Knight Arts Challenge; the City of Miami Beach Cultural Affairs Program and Cultural Arts Council; the State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs; the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs; and Sennheiser Electronic Corporation, with additional in-kind support from ArtCenter/South Florida and Books & Books.
Special thanks to Jeremy Chestler, María del Valle, Luis Olazábal, Charles Recher, Rene Barge, Russell Frehling, Kristen Thiele, David Dunn and all the artists, collaborators and listeners who made the project possible.