INSTALLATIONS | PERFORMANCES | EXHIBITIONS
SOUND INSTALLATION
ARE YOU HERE?
2022, site-specific sound installation at Oregon Contemporary, Portland, OR
You may hear someone sneeze, whisper, walk the talk, tear a paper or play music by happenstance while walking by the location. Are You Here is a site-specific sound installation that contains recordings of sound from the human body and field recordings from the region. Spiral Body explores the way sound embodies our physicality without the actual presence.
To watch a documented video, click HERE.
SOUND INSTALLATION
My Word Is Hard To Hear: 2015
2015, site-specific sound installation at c3: initiative gallery, Portland, OR
This work is an investigation into intimacy, but perhaps not closeness, in public spaces. Each circle on the floor acts as a listening station, focusing the voices of one of two readers reciting the same poem in hushed tones otherwise lost amongst the space's other noise. Without sharing with the listener any personal details apart from their manner of speech while in the circle, the readings highlight the listeners' own understanding of the speakers' ambiguous identities.
To listen to the poetry reading, click HERE.
My Word Is Hard To Hear: 2019&2020
2020, site-specific sound installations at Place gallery and the Ford Gallery, Portland, OR
A site-specific piece, “My Word Is Hard To Hear” evolves uniquely per location. In 2019, McBride and Takahashi resided in a forested area made for the local metal sculptor's studio as a “utopia” in the 80s. McBride recorded Takahashi’s new set of poems from the summer, with the environment and neighbor’s living noises. Then this recording was installed at a group exhibition at Place Gallery in 2019 as a site-specific version of “My Word Is Hard To Hear” with photo documentation of the recorded site.
In 2020, at a group exhibition at the Ford Gallery, McBride and Takahashi created a small space for a specific directional sound using a movable wall juxtaposing with an existing wall. A small highly directional speaker shot the whisperings of Takahashi’s poetry from the 2019 recording down to bounce off the wall and into one specific intimate spot. The passer-bys accidentally entered the small space, expecting visuals, and heard the directional whispering into their ears alone, with those nearby oblivious.
AUDIO WORK
Who Knows
2021, 2022. Audio: sound collage. 02:02
In 2021, the Spriral Body had access to Bodecker Foundation, a Portland-based sound venue that has a massive skateboard ramp (appx 15’ deep). They set up a few musical instruments, microphones, and other props down at the bottom of the ramp to collect the site-specific acoustic noises with playing these Instruments. Takahashi’s different types of voicing and her readings also have been recorded with the surrounding echos. They also collected the movement sounds of human bodies- running around, walking, and tapping the floor and walls from the bottom of the hole to accentuate the space’s unique bouncing liquid echoey sonic characteristics. The acoustic in the deep concrete hole allows these sounds to bounce around, they recorded these transferring sounds with their multiple echoes. Who Knows has been created from the collections of recording from this experience.
To listen to “who knows”, click HERE.