2025
Multichannel sound installation with ceramics, gravel, salt, clay, sand, and stone
Dimensions variable
Candoro Marble Building, Knoxville, TN

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Presented at the historic Candoro Marble Building, gently used hauntings is a series of sound sculptures built from a code poem written in SuperCollider. The script draws from a library of cassette field recordings alongside instruments [violin, banjo, and mountain dulcimer] performed by myself and collaborator Bailey Fritz.

 

When the viewer entered the space first one sculpture played, then two, then four, and finally eight. Each sequence would create a new combination of sounds that would be unique to each viewer. There are more potential combinations of sounds than there are stars in our universe. The sculptures were arranged in a spiral, referencing Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty. Their pedestals were made of different earths [salt, gravel, stones, clay, red soil, and sand] connecting the field recordings taken from the region to different iterations and formations of earth from the same locations. 

 

gently used hauntings asks the listener to move slowly, to notice the interplay between earth and sound, and to consider how landscapes and bodies hold onto what has passed, even as new patterns emerge.