A Working Description (2002)

My recent work inevitably reveals time as an element in its aesthetic consideration. Our relationship with time is culturally specific and it evolves as we do. The rising and setting of the sun, the waxing and waning of the moon, changes in the air that signal the turning of seasons. These rhythmic reference points once delineated our generations and life spans. Now these natural cycles have been catalogued and subdivided down to the millisecond. The geologic and environmental pulses that once formed the basis for our measures have been systematically observed, ordered and refined until our standards no longer rely on or reference their source. Nature now fits our system. We can readily explain and deduce the causes of natural phenomena and our visceral and immediate relationship with the natural world has transformed into one of distance and control. That which we can not control we strive to predict in the hopes of insuring the insulated dominion we hold over our lives and landscape.

Even life expectancy is guided by the conditions we choose to invite or exclude. More often than not, this continuing quest for control is spearheaded by the development of technology. From the first sticks and roughly hewn tools to the online child tracking devices now available to parents, technology has been an extension of our search for immortality. Strengthening our ability to survive meant the propagation of humanity and the promise of a calculated and comfortable future for dawning generations. However, this unrelenting hunger for newer and faster technology bears the responsibility for shaping and compressing our natural sense of time.

This stark compression is evident when one compares waiting for the coming rains to waiting in line at the ATM. Minutes and seconds have become commodities in a polyrhythmic multi-tasking world that hinges on immediacy and falls apart at the first sign of delay. Granted, the societal demands now placed upon us are alleviated by intelligent time management and everyone plays the game in order to survive. But survival was once closer than the nearest corner store and ten o'clock meeting. It lay in our hands, upon our shoulders, backs and minds. It lay in the promise of rain. Borne on the wind, survival necessitated natural awareness, physical exertion, and often, intense hardship. Survival depended on our ability to shape ourselves around the wanderings of our environment.

In this day and age, distance from the ugly beauty of our past has given some of us the luxury to develop the unnecessary. The emphasis has shifted from survival to stockpiling. Technology as a means to fuel consumerism has become a new religion. We innovate to satiate our own boredom rather than as a means of gaining comfort, insuring survival, or crossing intellectual and artistic boundaries. As technology glides up its exponential curve of development, we are ushered into a quickening era of interconnected informational exuberance. We find ourselves distanced from a notion of pace and time that makes sense in the context of the natural world to which we are inextricably linked.

This link is at the heart of my elemental exploration with turntables. For me the key lies in surrendering a measure of control. Letting go of my initial expectations for the instrument and its capabilities in order to uncover new possibilities. Immersed in a cultural maelstrom that rewards speed, efficiency and brevity, I am compelled to relinquish any loyalty to that pace in order to see the instrument in a larger context.

"What does a turntable look like that must wait for the end of the dry season for its song to be heard?" That question returns some control to natural processes and embraces a sense of time that exists in cultures dependent on the land.



My elemental turntables, Wind, Water, Fire, Earth, all reflect this thinking. Their tempos, duration and activation rely on forces that can never be fully controlled. Water, for example, reinterprets any record it plays by slowing it to match the rotation of a pool of water beneath the record itself. The resulting thick slow sound is geologic compared to the original recording but it resonates as richly and lasts for hours, mixed in with the sound of falling water which propels the entire process.

The work invites nature to participate while it invites the listener to take notice of the wind or the absence of an earthquake, or the frequency of a bird's feeding pattern.



Electronic music is at the forefront of a new techno-artistic quest and it often overlooks the fact that sound is its principal medium. The emphasis on gadgetry inserts another level of distance and control into the equation. Sound becomes a function of technology rather than a natural event transformed or interpreted by technology. This physical disturbance, this vibration pulsing through air molecules, decoded by our ears and absorbed by our minds and muscles is an ever-present natural, physical phenomenon. We think we are creating the new when we are merely reinterpreting the fundamental. Tirelessly pursuing new sounds, rhythms, and ideas within a narrowly focused cultural context that absent-mindedly excludes its physical history.

In an interesting twist, much electronic music found its new sounds and rhythms in the antiquated mechanical technology of record players. Turntables have been the new thing in recent years. They can reference the outside world through sampling: the selection of culturally relevant moments of vinyl, which skip and turn, disseminating musical information and weaving airborne collages of sound. They were the oldest method of sound reproduction resurrected to help form the foundations of the newest movement, Hip-Hop. They ignited and took the club scene on an extended remix, and now they grace stages, practice pads, and living rooms worldwide.

Turntables have finally gained recognition as viable musical instruments. However, this recognition, even by those DJ visionaries who heralded the dawn of turntablism, has been strangely shortsighted. Almost every instrument, sound, voice, music, has been etched into a vinyl disc at one time or another. These records offer an unlimited palette of sounds that continue to be overlooked. Add to this, the record player's inherent percussive and tonal capabilities and you have the makings of a complete, dynamic, and deep instrument. Scratching and mixing will forever be mainstays of the art. They have been refined and perfected and redefined and re-perfected with brilliant technical mastery. But, in light of the limitless possibilities afforded any DJ with the curiosity to venture out in search of new sound, the focus on turntables as strictly hip-hop based music instruments has sold the craft short. (Fortunately there are more DJs today who are seeking out, searching for, and finding new musical frontiers.)

We have witnessed the development of a sonic vocabulary for the instrument but its expansion seems to have been abbreviated. Surprising when you consider the language (in a hip-hop context) is barely two decades old. The initial creative growth spurt has hit a plateau and many seem to feel that we have reached the inherent tonal and technical limits of the record player. The old adage about humans only using 10 percent of their brain capacity mirrors my notion that we've only been scratching 10 percent of the turntable's instrumental and expressive potential.

My sound explorations are forays into the remaining 90 percent. They began with the discovery that the record player was intrinsically percussive. It readily sensed and amplified vibration even when that vibration didn't come from a record. Each section of the tone arm, platter and base resonated through the stylus differently, and I could build a texture map of the entire instrument. When I held tin cans up to the stylus and struck them, they produced clear sharp tones.



This eventually led to the development of Stylophones, a big step in discovering the tonal aspects of turntables. These are string instruments, which, through direct contact, resonate the stylus. Vibrations pass through the needle in the same way as if they were imparted from the groove on a record. This clear and bright sound is then channeled through a mixer and can be combined with any other sound. It can be electronically processed and can be made to sound like a Japanese Koto, human voice, or an electric guitar. The Stylophone, a one string wooden implement, the oldest type of instrument after the drum, integrated seamlessly into the 21st century tool of electronic music. They have since developed into multi-string varieties. They range in length from 4 inches to 4 feet, some can be played with a bow and some transform into wind instruments. All of them are used with turntables.



After making so many pieces built to interact with a record player, I imagined a record player that was itself a stringed instrument. This led to the development of the Phonoharp. I made some preliminary drawings, developed and built the harp in late August 2001. The Phonoharp is a fully tune-able electro-acoustic stylus/string instrument with a rich melodic, textural, and percussive vocabulary. The turntable nests in the center of 27 strings that radiate out from its edges. Those strings ferry their vibrations into the body of the instrument, through the platter and into the needle. That signal is combined with an acoustic one to reveal the true sound of the instrument. The sound has been described as a cross between that of a West African Kora and a Japanese Koto. The base can also be played percussively, the record platter can become a gong or cymbal, and the strings can be struck with mallets and played with a bow.

The Phonoharp represents the culmination of many initial ideas and concepts but is, in and of itself, one more step in the process of linking new ideas with their oldest inspirations. On one level, it's about respect for history. On another, it's about shifting people's perceptions. So many of us are content with how things supposed to be and what things are supposed to do that we don't approach experiences from different viewpoints. Many don't even imagine there are other perspectives. This is problematic when we live in a rich and multi-dimensional world that resists delineation. If the imaginative reinterpretation of an object as familiar as a record player can spark this sort of awareness in people then the effort is entirely worthwhile. This kind of cultural influence may be a tall order but it will always be something I aspire to.

Mutato Nomine De Te Fabula Naratur



This recent work invites an urban population of pigeons to take shelter, eat, and create a sonic environment within the surrounding gallery space. It allows the viewer/listener to observe the birds at close range immersed in a soundscape triggered by, and dependent on, the movements and habits of each bird.

Turntables and sound sculptures are built into an enclosure that has one side open to the sky. These record players are activated by triggers in the installation, tripped by the weight and movement of the birds. Embedded in the walls of the structure are strategically placed peepholes like those found in apartment doors.

These reveal intimate portraits of the bird's behavior along with drawings, images and textual information referencing the history of human interaction with pigeons. The structure itself is adorned with technical drawings detailing the pigeon's ability to home using the sun, visual and olfactory cues, and detection of shifts in the earth's magnetic field. The drawings also reference sections of turntables that serve similar functions in the reproduction and magnetic transference of sound.

Each record player is linked to a different aspect of pigeon behavior and there are microphones enabling live sampling of the birds themselves. The sound of the installation reveals historic phonograph recordings from the early 20th century through the present, compositions specifically created for and from the work; and cultural excerpts espousing progress and the benefits of timesaving technology. At any given moment, the composition of sound in the gallery depends on the location and movement of the birds in the enclosure. Some records may repeat all day while the animals are perched. At other times, the din is replaced by silence as the birds scatter in flight. Upon their return, one by one, the sound collage resumes.

When the installation settles in, one complete day will be recorded. Ideally, this twelve-hour document will be made available as a limited edition of 24, signed and numbered, 18 record sets, complete with written and visual information from the work.