The Chicago Sound Show

The Chicago Sound Show 1 The Chicago Sound The Show Chicago Sound Show SEPTEMBER 27–DECEMBER 29, 2019 2 Introduction 20 Olivia Block 48 Nomi Epstein 6 David Wallace Haskins 14 Walter Kitundu 26 Lou Mallozzi 40 Stephan Moore 56 Sam Pluta 62 Andy Slater 34 Katherine Young We compress our ideas, dreams, joys, Sound is and sorrows into sonic utterances and propel pressure waves outwards, sending our way of inquiries into space, hoping these pulses of energy will collect meaning on throwing journeys of refraction, and return to us ourselves transformed into knowledge. With the simple assignment of placing out into speakers in space, the artists of The Chicago Sound Show transformed nine the world. locations on the UChicago campus into portals of knowledge. Filtered through the minds of brilliant practitioners, these spaces revealed secrets and uncovered truths to students, faculty, and listeners from around the world. Of the many powers of sound, I would like to highlight one of the most potent on audition at the The Chicago Sound Show, and that is sound’s amazing ability to warp space and time, transporting us to real and imagined environments miles, states, and even epochs away. Olivia Bloch’s work, Indiana Karst, takes the listeners out of the University campus and places them in a limestone cave in Indiana, the very cave from which many of the buildings on the University 2 campus were constructed. Andy Slater’s, to think about, adding subtle processed Unseen Re-heard, brings the listener on water sounds that blend seamlessly with a journey around the UChicago campus, the Cloister’s fountain, creating an aural as heard through the focused ears of illusion and forcing the observer to listen a visually-impaired leader, guiding the deeply to the electro-acoustic mix. listener to sounds they may otherwise not have perceived. David Wallace As sound can add to and recontextualize Haskins’ thunderous Breath sets a number a space, enhancing its many meanings, of scenes from different locations on auditory intelligence can also transform campus at different times of day against a space completely, giving it a the gorgeous drones of the Rockefeller different identity. Stephan Moore’s Six Chapel’s Skinner Organ, presenting a Accompaniments for Solo Voice, takes spatial counterpoint available to us in the “ceaseless vocalization of the nearby sound, but impossible with the other Searle Chemistry Laboratory’s ventilation senses. system” and, by adding a simple accompaniment, transforms this leviathan Walter Kitundu’s Maximum of the Eyes into a belting diva, creating an inviting pushes sonic counterpoint even further, space open for exploration. simultaneously projecting into the birch grove near Campus North up to six A number of works in the show reveal different environments situated outward different intermedia relationships that from the installation’s epicenter. The sound art establishes between music and work localizes the listener in Hyde Park, other media, often times even creating allowing the pulsing neurons of the a connection between multiple media surrounding city to critique themselves at the same time. The connection with with sonic insights and experiences. Nomi sound and sculpture is clear. Listeners are Epstein’s Quiet Qloister takes the already encouraged to walk around the space, contemplative Swift Cloister Garden hearing the work from many perspectives, and gives the listener something new gaining insight from many angles. In my 3 own work, Parallel/Series, I attempt an into history to reflect on the realities intermedia relationship between sound lived, with the hopes that we can build a and architecture, placing the listener better future. inside a lattice of sound and prompting them to discover the piece by exploring Time, a critical element of any sonic art space itself. is at play in all of these works. Some of these works explore durations under By using text, Lou Mallozzi and Katherine an hour. Some explore durations of Young connect music with theatre, several hours. Some, under the right poetry, and history. Lou Mallozzi’s Close conditions, could be infinite. Our time Quarters envisions a futurist spatial on the University of Chicago campus poetry, spreading words and the voices was not infinite, but for three months that speak them throughout Smart The Chicago Sound Show graced the Museum of Art courtyard, going so far as campus of the University of Chicago. It’s to break each voice into its low, middle, success is the result the generosity and and high components. The listener can hard work of a number of individuals to simply hear the components for what whom I owe infinite thanks: curator Laura they are or move about until the full Steward and the amazing staff of the spectrum of a voice is audible. Smart Museum, Barry O’Quinn and the incredible facilities crew, David Vosburg Katherine Young’s work, Resonance, for helping keep things running through and the Inhibition of, brings to the the fall, and all of the individuals who fore the theater of time and history. helped each artist create and install their Young’s installation places the listener works. inside a tapestry of sounds connected to women scientists from the early and mid-twentieth century. Highlighting the Sam Pluta, Assistant Professor in the accomplishments of these pioneers, this Department of Music work encourages us to reach backwards at the University of Chicago 4 The Chicago Sound Show 5 Walkway between Pick Hall and Walker Museum Olivia Block Indiana Karst, 2019 Multi-channel sound installation with A multi-speaker installation that plays field recordings architectural fragments of cave water sounds. The recording references the Indiana limestone that is used as a building material in much of the architecture on campus. 6 7 8 Olivia Block Indiana Karst reflects my fascination with Upon researching the architectural constituent materials of buildings and history of the campus, I discovered that their acoustic and historical properties. most of the buildings were constructed from Indiana limestone. Further research I was drawn to the sidewalk between led my attention to limestone caves in Pick Hall and the Walker Museum due Indiana near the quarries where the its sunken, narrow, cave-like quality and University of Chicago limestone was the flowing movement of people through sourced. the passageway. Additionally, I was struck by the unique acoustic properties In January 2019, I drove to the Indiana from the sonic reflections bouncing off Caverns near Corydon to record hard surfaces, and the contrasting visual water in the caves. I was struck by the silhouettes of Brutalist and Gothic styles strangeness of water trickling sounds of architecture against the narrow swath without wind, insects, people, cars, of sky. or other ambient noises that usually accompany the sounds of rivers and streams. 9 On site at the University, I embedded speakers in carved out pieces of castoff limestone. The sounds were subtly filtered by the stone encasements, resulting in a faint tonal addition to the flowing and dripping. Additionally, speakers were positioned facing the walls of Pick Hall and the Walker Museum for further acoustic alterations from reflected sounds. In my imagination, through the addition of cavern sounds on site, the formation of limestone became an adjacent architectural history of the buildings. The compressed temporal scale shaping the lives of students walking through the passageways—the minutes, seconds and deadlines guiding their movements —was now accompanied by the dripping sounds that formed limestone over epochs and eons. 10 Olivia Block 11 Swift Cloister Garden Nomi Epstein Quiet Qloister, 2019 Four-channel sound installation with In Swift Cloister Garden’s uniquely protected sonic hydrophone, live-processed and space, this work subtly pursues a further sense of prerecorded sounds seclusion and escape by echoing, enhancing, and processing the sound of the cloister’s fountains. 12 13 14 Nomi Epstein I was immediately drawn to the Swift won an award from the Illinois Chapter Cloister Garden when curator Laura of the American Society of Landscape Steward led me on a walkthrough of Architects for this particular project in the University of Chicago campus in 2017. As I was initially unfamiliar with early October 2018. I was first struck by the layout of the buildings on campus, I the space’s obvious visual beauty—the soon realized that Swift Hall, which abuts cloisters which border one wall, the the garden on two sides, and provides rectangular garden that is built within it’s third side, a walkway of cloisters, the four fenced areas lined with bushes, was the University’s Divinity School and the two square fountains which and that this walkway borders Bond ground the garden connected by a long Chapel. Clearly these two structures, thin water basin. But, as I sat on the their function, the types of events they benches in front of the fountains, what hold—classes, prayers, philosophies, drew me in further, as someone who ideas, sounds—and moments that occur particularly enjoys quietude, solitude, inside of them, greatly influenced the and private spaces, was its ability to landscape architects in their design provide a near complete feeling of concept visually, aesthetically, spiritually, isolation from the remainder of the and sonically. campus. It felt successfully secluded from what is a very public and large The fountains involve two large, square quad. An unusual cloister, instead of shaped limestone boxes, which each being fully enclosed, it remains open to have four spouts of water. Each fountain the larger University quadrangle. Still, it has a carved out lip where the water captures the sentiment of a cloister with pours over to a low tunneled byway its ability to calm and quiet the visitor. connecting the two boxes. In the center of the tunneled byway is a covered I took photographs and videos, circular stone formation where the water returned several times to the location collects again.

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