AURAL SHADOWS IN THE ABSENCE OF TREES

DEC
2015
Fridman Gallery
NYC
This acousmatic sound performance was formulated as a response to Anton Ginzburg's installation HYBRID GAZE and consequently the performer was absent. Solely the playback machine - an apparatus of reproduction - was performing. The performance took place on Dec 14 2015 at Fridman Gallery.

Format: Quadrophonic (4.2 channel audio)
Duration: 26:11 minutes.

fridman aural shadows ginzburg soundart neumann
[Microphone inside the subwoofer]

The piece is a four-channel audio montage made from unmonitored recordings captured in the gallery during the run of the exhibition. "The exhibition focuses on the contemporary extension of the human eye by means of technology and the resulting dematerialization of the body, the hybrid gaze of the human and the machine." (from the press release)

In the same way Ginzburg is and isn't gazing at nature, Neumann is and isn't listening to the exhibition - collecting and directing material through various technological processes (recordings 01-05) for the apparatus to be performing itself.

fridman ginzburg auralshadows soundart aural neumann


List of recordings:

01
Two-channel recording of End of Perspective. Microphones were placed inside the two subwoofers that play back the audio of the piece.
Fixed gain, no headphones, 21:11 minutes

02
Boundary mic recording of Displacements. Picking up the sound of the projector from the surface of the projection.
Fixed gain, no headphones, 5 minutes

03-05
The three performances by Daniel Perlin, Michael Pisaro and Gust Burns, that were part of the exhibition program, were recorded in absence.
No memories, no access other than the aural representation.

fridman ginzburg auralshadows soundart aural neumann


For the montage, the installation recordings (01, 02) were used as straight audio material, whereas the three performance recordings (03-05) were converted into various midi-data-streams that then "played" a 4-voice synthesizer. The montage was done by overlaying all of the materials onto a timeline and then subtracting - at that point Neumann inserted himself back into his piece as a human filter.

fridman ginzburg auralshadows soundart aural neumann performance