This week I will install a new piece titled ‘Making Conversation‘ in the unique Scala staircase space at the Tabakalera Arts Center in Donostia / San Sebastián (Spain). Scala is a space within the Center (an ex-tobacco factory) that is dedicated to presenting sound pieces though a vertical 8-channel diffusion scaling 4 levels of a beautiful historic open staircase.

Making Conversation was inspired by nocturnal listening sessions that took place while visiting Bali, Indonesia in 2018 and 2019. During my listening and recording sessions I observed the complex interplay of sounds interacting around me between amphibians, lizards and insect communications, domestic animals (roosters, dogs), man-made sounds (airplanes, vehicles, passing conversations and evening activities) and other sounds that I couldn’t recognize or place. This sound environment was incredibly dense and complex. I have created a piece that is inspired by the patterns, shapes, movement, tones and textures that I observed. Not by using the actual field recordings that I made, but through reinterpreting this sonic landscape using diverse instrumentation, electronics, voices, objects and sounds. Memory also plays a critical role in this process. The field-recordings I reference can only portray so much of the lived experience, but they act as a doorway to recollections, memories and sensations that played a critical role in guiding my compositional process.

The accompanying drawings were created during automatic drawing sessions. Allowing my hands to move and react instinctively through subconscious direction during repeated listening sessions of the Bali recordings and the developing the sound composition. The drawings and the sound composition were created in tandem, relating back and forth to each other in a continuous process. Rather than act as a graphic ‘score’ the visual works are companions to the sound piece, illustrating parts of the intuitive process that assisted the development of the final work.

The exhibition runs from July 13 – October 22, 2023.

I will give a talk at 19:00 on Thursday about the work w/ curator Oier Etxeberria.

On Saturday July 15 I will perfom in a live duo concert with Oren Ambarchi at the Tabakalera as part of the MUSIKA DENA ETA EZ DENA FESTIVAL.