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The latest events.

CAA Conference Session and Presentation

Exhibitions Permalink

Conference:
China Blue, Co-Chair Person with Margaret Schedel, Stony Brook University at:

College Arts Association, 103rd Annual Conference will be held at the Hilton New York, on February 13, 2015.

Session Title: Four Perspectives on Sound Art: History, Practice, Structure & Perception

Participants: Janet Kraynak, New School, NY; Charles Eppley, Stony Brook University; Ken Ueno, University of California Berkeley; Seth Cluett, Ramapo College of New Jersey; Michael Maizels, Davis Museum at Wellsley College; Dr. Melissa Warak University of Texas at El Paso.
Talk:
Event: MACT Salon 1: Sound Art Presentation
When: Saturday, February 14th, 8:00pm
Where: Stony Brook University-Manhattan, 387 Park Avenue South on the third floor, between 27th and 28th Streets

Speakers: China Blue, Seth Cluett, Margaret Schedel and Ken Ueno.

This MACT Salon inaugurates a monthly event series presented by Stony Brook University on the topics of media arts, culture and technology.

MACT Graduate Certificate Program in Media, Art, Culture, and Technology at Stony Brook University, offers graduate students an interdisciplinary grounding in the historical and theoretical study of media, art, culture, and technology. It is designed to complement a graduate student’s primary degree by supporting research that traverses traditional academic methods and objects of inquiry. Combining faculty with diverse expertise in media, art, culture, and technology, the MACT certificate supports work at the dynamic intersections of these evolving fields.

“8 Bit Cricket” Tokyo Wondersite

Sound Art Permalink

An interactive light and sound installation

US Representative
Tokyo Experimental Arts Festival
Tokyo Wondersite, Japan

“8-Bit Cricket” was exhibited in Tokyo Wonder Site’s Experimental Art Festival, October-November 2009. With this work I was interested in mimicing the behavior and sounds of the cricket. Like nature the crickets sing when it is dark and are quiet during the day when it is light. “8-Bit Cricket” functions simularly. It is shown in a darkened room. Each one has its own Led attached to the ‘cricket cage’ to randomly trigger the cricket circuits off, resulting in an intriguing sonic experience that is tuned differently in each room. The video is of an installation in one of two rooms where the work was shown.
This version encourages people to “gig” with the circuits with a flash light.

“Aqua Alta” OPEN XI International Exhibition of Sculpture and Installations Venice, Italy & AC Direct, NYC

Sound Art Permalink
Aqua Alta

Aqua Alta Installation at San Servolo, Venice, Italy

In 2008 I was the US Representative with “Aqua Alta“ at OPEN XI International Exhibition of Sculpture and Installations held in conjunction with the Architecture Biennale at Isola di San Servolo, Venice, Italy. This work was curated by Edward Rubin a New York based writer and critic.

The sound of Venice is water. Every minute of every day and every night the sound of water is splashing on the stairs, lapping at the doorways and rises in waves as gondolas breeze across it. From the founding of Venice, to the present day, water is the source of transportation, a symbol of romance and the element that made Venice a major maritime power and a significant trading port. Water is also its problem. Global-warming has induced changes to the aquatic environment causing the waters to swell filling the piazzas and buildings and threatening the daily life and culture of Venice.

Aqua Alta

Listen to the sound piece here.

Aqua Alta is an immersive 5.1 sound experience created using specialized audio equipment to capture the unique sounds of the waters of Venice via the gondolas that glide through them. This work was inspired by the effects global warming have on the environment, both underwater and above.

Types of Recordings used: binaural recordings of the gondolier singing and the ambient sounds, vibrations from the floor of the gondola, sounds in the water recorded with hydrophones, snapping shrimp, dolphin’s whistle, ship noise.

The sound piece was placed in this colonnade that surrounds the 8th century Benedictine monastery on San Servolo.

The sound installation Aqua Alta is a study of Venice’s dependence on and the threat of water. Aqua Alta submerges the listener in the sounds and the effect of the water on Venice. What is heard are the sounds from the water’s edge and underwater recordings, the structural creaks of the gondolas and sounds of water flowing around and under them as they float through the lagoon. Splashes and deep wave sounds of water lapping on the buildings and stairways at the water’s edge, and the sounds of the sea life are also heard. The sound tracks of both above and below the water line were post-processed to create the sense of rising and falling of the sound field, thus mimicking both the natural effects of the tides and, overall, the slow envelopment of the sounds in air by the aquatic acoustics as the waters rise to represent the dangers to Venice of global-warming induced changes to the aquatic environment.

Aqua Alta

Aqua Alta Installation at AC Direct, Chelsea, NY

Simultaneously Aqua Alta was exhibited in Chelsea, New York at AC Direct

In 2009 it was again shown in the Mobile Art Project, a touring exhibition that traveled through out Rhode Island.

“The Calls” Pace University

Sound Art Permalink
"Dust Messages" by Seth Horowitz

“Dust Messages” by Seth Horowitz taken at the World Trade Center on 9/11

The Calls, 2006

“The Calls”

This is a sound piece is an ode to the 9/11 event and the World Trade Center.
Created in collaboration with Dr. Seth Horowitz

“China Blue…turns the notion of technological advancement into a paradox. “The Calls,” (2006) is a sound piece that centers around the World Trace Center attacks that took place on Septtember 11, 2001. Voices of the control tower dispatchers with the pilots are mixed with dial tones echo range of musical scale that sounds pleasant but eerie. The dial tones were derived from available statistics about the World Trade Center: how tall it was how many people died etc. Voices from the airplanes and control tower can be heard faintly in the background, preserving the fatal last minutes in a shroud of mystery.”

by  Jill Conner, Digiscape: Unexplored Terrain, Exhibition Catalog,

Exhibited in Digiscape: Unexplored Terrain at Pace University, NY, 2007

Played in a special 9/11 episode at Unusual Music (Italy) and Radio Broadband by David Riccio, 2015

 

“The Secret Arch” Dam Stultragher, Brooklyn, NY & Soap Factory, MN.

Sound Art Permalink

The Secret Arch, 2007
The Secret Arch is an interactive installation based on the secret arch, an architectural feature located at Grand Central Station, New York. There, when you whisper into one corner of the arch you can be heard clearly on the opposite side.

Users of the Secret Arch were invited to interact with it by recording their passions, fears, phobias or secrets at the arch on site.

This work was exhibited at DamStultrager in Brooklyn, NY and the Soap Factory, Minneapolis, MN

“As new media gradually shifts sculpture away from the object and more toward sensory experience, such displacement not only counters the conspicuous consumption oversaturating the contemporary art market, but it also raises the question of whether the very concept of art will gradually move away from the tangible sphere. Despite some slight weaknesses, these exhibitions succeeded in placing new emphasis on architectonics and realigning the boundaries of space with immaterial means.”
Brooklyn Rail, Jill Conner, July 2007

Exhibition

Exhibitions Permalink

“Photinus Muybridgeus”

will be exhibited in

“Explored and Envisioned”

Opening: February 6, 2015 from 5:30-8:00PM

Exhibition: February 6 – March 29, 2015

Where: The Vets Gallery, Providence, RI

“Skratch”Acoustical Society of America’s Conference

Sound Art Permalink
"Skratch"

“Skratch” by China Blue at the Acoustical Society of America’s annual meeting

Skratch, 2006

“Skratch”

7.1 Sound Installation at the Acoustical Society of America’s conference
Created in collaboration with Dr. Seth Horowitz

Skratch is a 7.1 surround sound installation which was created from a recording of an actual pool game played with friends.  The piece utilizes the 7.1 format which has 6 primary speakers that are used to represent the 6 pockets of the pool table.  The ball sounds are heard from the appropriate speaker when the ball drops into a pocket.  When sitting in the center, the audience can hear the acoustic dynamics of the ball as it wizzes past them combined with the dialogue of the players.  An equal emphasis is placed on the conversations and dynamics of the players, which are matched with the sounds of the balls as they hit each other, drop into the pockets and pass under the table.  In this work the artist presents the invisibility of human relationships through the immaterial means of sound.

 

Mikey vs Fabio, City Wide Exhibition Dijon, France

Sound Art Permalink
Mikey vs Fabio

Mikey vs Fabio by China Blue

2004 Mikey vs. Fabio

Mikey vs Fabio

Stereo installation at Interface, Dijon, France
Exhibited during a city wide show of my work in Dijon

This piece is based on a recording of a ping pong game between Mikey & Fabio. The installation of the piece is designed so that speakers are on opposite ends of a room mimicked the location of the players. The sounds of the ball were paned so that the walls became the location of the paddle. When standing in the middle of the room the audience heard the ball whizzing dramatically over head.