TERRAIN INSTRUMENT TreeswayFranklin Furnace Hudson River Performance

Conceptual drawing on photograph((not realized))

, Curated By Peter Frank

the Hudson River was visible out the back door

This title, for instance, suggests aspects of what art in technologies have been advocating for some time. My long distance interactive and communicative project was accessable. Further, it grew from this point, later I merged with the computer and with people using computers. My work moves into working with digital sound processing. A Westar IV satellite linked musicians and sound artists for a two hour performance between New York (WNYC) and Duluth (KSJN-StPaul) in July

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performance view from B&W video includes the suspended planes w/audienece able to walk/pause among these 5' speakers; these were outputing the sounds from live musicians, also present, and from the 202 computer mixdown, some of which was on tape and simulateously originating fr/Duluth Minnesota US- in this same Hudson River Museum space

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My professional career in sound has explored an intermediary role, sharing through a variety of public performances the potentials of amplified, otherwise unheard, contextual natural phenomena. I have used current technological delivery methods through which this spatial sound can reach a listener anywhere.For more than twenty years, I have used the windribbon sound source, consisting of a half-inch brass ribbon stretched taut by a pair of hefty turnbuckles 250 feet between birch trees. For realtime transmissions of these and other sounds, I have at various times used tape, equalized telephone pairs, two-way satellite channels, or 200 transported speakers and a microprocessor for installations. This sound has combined my Terrain Instrument man made objects in many physical and electronic varieties. They passively have offered wind produced and accelerometer-amplified vibrations from breezes to heavy gusts; snow and single raindrops heard for their individual sound and spectral signatures; Lakes Michigan and Superior audible-range soundings in frozen ice floes , as well as hydrophone-monitored water volumes. The tree and its root systems have presented a challenge. Audibly, most tree's vibrations sound much the same. Deciduous and conifer trees however, can produce subtle and nuanced sonic differences. Overall, the Terrain Instruments along with solar-powered electronic preamps are my preference for sensing and amplifying unheard natural vibrations. I concentrate on those sounds which come directly from natural sources. My ongoing work, particularly with the WindRibbon, will continue to allow me to perfect an imagery component to the sounds, which can compliment those imaginings conjured upon first hearing these familiar, yet unique sounds. My work continues to be participatory in the sense that an ear approach is necessary for the second look at nature. I listen for new potentials from terrestrial sferics, ground-truth (trees, etc) , the earth's sonics continue as focal research (via the Windscube and Meadow Piano concepts) , extraterrestrial spatial audible constructs, and especially from the Mars Microphone.

My work has long since evolved from analog only to analog and digital mergings via a Mac9600/300/Sound Designer II, Audiomedia III, ProTools, Deck, MAX/MSP, and a developing interaction w/IRCAM's Real Time Forum Group.

A long standing interest in MIDI uses may now be melded into a recycling by making the Windribbon available, together with other terrain instuments to an interactive real time networking joined by other participants. It is my present interest to re-awaken the natural energy in a world wired for what. I want to reaffirm the need to reconnect with natural phenomena via a realtime PASSAROUNDSOUND.net.nz pdf.