002 Sounding the Receptive Field  

Sounding the Receptive Field, a 6-channel sound installation, was installed in the parking lot of The Redhouse Theatre in downtown Syracuse for Urban Video Project Volume 3 on April 19th. Sounding the Receptive Field is comprised of recordings of 6 strolls through the city. Subverting the normal method of walking through an urban space, the walks become performative by the playful striking and sing-song narration of signs and objects in the environment.

The recording of the walker's progressive peeling away of the city, one step at a time, is mapped onto the physical and sonic environment of the installation space. Once united spatially, the recordings take on rhythmic and harmonic qualities. At The Redhouse location, speakers were faced in multiple directions, bouncing sound down alleyways, into parking garages, and throughout downtown spaces.

French social scientist Michel de Certeau wrote of the ways in which one operates in social space. The urban grid, in both its physical and symbolic forms, is a tool of the dominant institutions that created it. Thus, by acting outside of the behaviors deemed normal or acceptable for those spaces, the walker makes a tactical strike at authority, if only for a moment.

Click here to view documentation clip.

-posted Monday May 7, 2007-

  < previous     next >