Eighty Five Audible Moments for Pauline Oliveros (2016)
Noise melody | stereo | 1′25″
Dedicated to Pauline Oliveros
Eighty Five Audible Moments (2016) | 1′25″ | Original stereo realization. First presented June 1, 2017, as part of Still Listening: New Works in Honour of Pauline Oliveros at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
ABOUT THE WORK
Eighty Five Audible Moments was created at the invitation of IONE, Pauline Oliveros’s partner and longtime collaborator. Eighty-five artists were invited to contribute works lasting 85 seconds for a surprise celebration of Pauline’s 85th birthday.
Pauline died unexpectedly on November 24, 2016, before the celebration could take place. The project became Still Listening, a tribute comprising an exhibition of scores, performances and a conference presented at McGill University from June 1–3, 2017.
The piece consists of 85 audibles extracted from recordings in the archive I had been building since I was twelve years old—first on tape and later in various digital formats. An audible is a small but perceptually complete segment of recorded sound. Its duration is determined by what the sound does and what is needed for it to become identifiable or suggestive.
The audibles in this piece therefore vary in length. I selected and arranged them carefully enough to accommodate all 85 within the required duration of 85 seconds.
No two audible moments are identical, although some share the same name in the score because they originated from similar sound sources. Arranged one after another, they form a noise melody: a simple sequence of audibles in which each event enters into a relationship with the ones immediately before and after it.
The piece may be heard by itself or while following the score, which names sounds that may not be easily recognizable. The score may also be performed by assembling 85 different sound gestures within a period of 85 seconds.
MOVING INTO SPACE
The original composition was made and presented in stereo. In 2018, I returned to its project file to create spatial realizations that preserved the sequence, timing and integrity of the noise melody.
For each audible, I listened to what the sound was doing and selected an appropriate behavior within the available system. A sound might occupy one speaker, spread through a cluster of nearby speakers, or begin at a chosen point and travel across or around the room.
The spatial behavior was not applied uniformly. Each audible was treated according to its own character. The original temporal composition remained intact while its 85 moments acquired individual positions and movements.
FOUR-POINT REALIZATION — 2018
On August 24, 2018, I presented a four-point performance realization at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at Florida SouthWestern State College in Fort Myers. Overlapping stereo copies of the original composition were distributed among four channels, allowing related versions of the noise melody to occupy and interact within the gallery.
AUDIOTHEQUE 2.0 — 2018
The 30-channel realization premiered on September 13, 2018, as part of Four Audible Experiences of Movement of Sound in Space, the opening installation exhibition at Audiotheque 2.0 in Miami Beach.
All 30 channels of the system were used. Individual audibles could appear from a single point, occupy small constellations of speakers, or travel through the room. The result was not a new composition added around the stereo work, but a spatial orchestration of the same 85-second noise melody.
The installation remained available through December 15, 2018.
Eighty Five Audible Moments | Audiotheque 2.0 realization (2018) | 1′25″ | Binaural documentation of the 30-channel spatial orchestration. Best heard through headphones.
SCORE
The score names the 85 audible moments and follows their sequential relationships through the 85-second composition. It may be used as a listening guide or as the basis for another performance made by joining 85 different sound gestures within the same duration.
PRESENTATION HISTORY
September 13–December 15, 2018
Four Audible Experiences of Movement of Sound in Space
30-channel installation orchestration
Audiotheque 2.0, ArtCenter/South Florida
Miami Beach, Florida
August 24, 2018
ArtSpeak@FSW
Four-point performance realization
Bob Rauschenberg Gallery
Florida SouthWestern State College
Fort Myers, Florida
June 1, 2017 — WORLD PREMIERE
Still Listening: New Works in Honour of Pauline Oliveros
Original stereo realization
McGill University
Montreal, Quebec, Canada