Sound is the audible evidence of life. It is evidence of things changing, moving, interacting, and occupying space. Sounds carry information about the events that produce them, the particular character of their sources, and the environments through which they travel.
I listen for what I call Audibles: small perceptual moments in which we can hear something of an event, the character of its source, and its interaction with the surrounding environment. A cricket chirp can be an Audible. So can the scrape of an object, a fragment of speech, a radio transmission, or a resonance excited within a building. I collect, record, combine, spatialize, and sometimes simply listen to these sounds as ways of discovering something about what produced them.
This has led me toward different forms of acoustic inquiry. Sound Portraits explore something of an individual’s character through sound. Endophones approach vibrating materials from their own acoustic perspective. Noise Melodies emerge by placing Audibles in succession. In other works, I excite architectural spaces and listen for resonances particular to them. The scale changes—from a tiny vibration within an object to the acoustic behavior of a building—but the impulse remains similar: to discover something by listening that I did not know was there.
David Dunn introduced me to the acoustic idea of an impedance match: conditions under which energy can pass effectively between systems. I began thinking about an analogous relationship between a listener and the surrounding world. I imagine it as a slow dance—bailar pegado—in which listening brings us into closer relation with what surrounds us. I call this relational resonance.
My work does not begin with a desire to tell sound what it should mean. I create and calibrate situations, listen to what happens, and allow what emerges to suggest what comes next. A recording, a loudspeaker, a contact microphone, a radio, an architectural space, or an encounter with another person can become an instrument for inquiry.
This inquiry also extends to the conditions in which people encounter art. I work with other artists and institutions to develop situations where sound can be explored and experienced with care. The relationships among the work, the space, the technology, and the people involved become part of what I am creating. I have come to describe this aspect of my practice as co-textual art.
I am interested in the moment when something previously unnoticed becomes discernible. For me, listening is not only a way of experiencing sound. It is a way of finding out.
SHORTER VERSION (180 words)
Sound is the audible evidence of life around us: things changing, moving, interacting, and occupying space. I listen for what I call Audibles, small perceptual moments that reveal something of an event, its source, and its relationship with the surrounding environment.
I record, combine, and spatialize these sounds to discover what produced them. My work ranges from small vibrations within objects to the resonances of buildings. Sound Portraits, Endophones, Noise Melodies, and multichannel installations offer different ways of approaching and extending the same inquiry.
I imagine listening as a slow dance with the surrounding world, a relationship I call relational resonance. I create and calibrate situations, listen to what happens, and allow what emerges to suggest what comes next.
This inquiry also shapes my collaborations with artists and institutions. The relationships among artwork, space, technology, and people become part of what I create. I describe this aspect of my practice as co-textual art.
I am interested in the moment when something previously unnoticed becomes discernible. For me, listening is a way of experiencing sound and a way of finding out.