| Our primary consideration in the design of LISTEN EDGEMAR was to find
ways to gently transform the space of the subterranean garage, 'activating'
a relatively blank canvas, just as a mural would function painted on a
white wall. We have adopted as a basic aesthetic the genre of 'lower case'
music. The concept is to shade the acoustical perception of the space
for the typical visitor, rather than to create an elaborate counterpoint
of melody which becomes tedious to the listener, a typical result of public
music. Instead, long-term structures are created with short sonic objects
which appear gradually, and wash in and out. We took as our cue the ebb
and flow of tides at the nearby Santa Monica Municipal Pier. The computer
is loaded with tidetable predictions which indicate the high and low waters
as the Earth-Moon-Sun system continually orbits. We use these local maximum
and minimum water marks as an excuse to activate the environment with
energy. The tides are marked by episodes lasting one to five minutes, containing a mix of the sound components defining the LISTEN EDGEMAR vocabulary (birds, airplanes, buses, ocean waves, accordion, cello, shakuhachi, contrabass flute, contrabass saxophone, and so on). Each sound component is assigned a spatialization pattern from a large repertoire, so that they are all heard as being in flight. A strong spatial counterpoint is built up from the coincidence of these patterns interacting across 8,000 square feet of space. To emphasize this dynamic use of the space, the tidetables are posted at Edgemar, so interested visitors can arrive in time to hear the high water solos. Also, the elevator will eventually contain a voice announcement triggered by the door opening that will indicate how long remains to the next tide, and what type of tide it is. Each high water brings with it a piece of driftwood, a metaphorical floating object which is left behind in the space, joining the gradually growing cluster of sounds. The object arriving at high tide is 'dropped' into a cyclonic ring (better known as a whirlpool) in the center core of speakers, where it will continue to rotate as time passes. Each object is assigned an interval at which it repeats, from a few seconds up to several days. This inexorable trajectory will continue until finally a low water washes away that piece of driftwood. The result is constantly oscillating textures, likely to stay similar over a short period of listening, but with an unanticipated counterpoint following from the large interval distribution. There are two main thrusts of our work: first, a series of algorithms which control the behavior of sounds in response to the environment, and second, the vocabulary of sounds which are fed into the sonic landscape. We have accumulated more than 40 hours of source material, from the courtyard at Edgemar, the garage and the street, and in the studio, Pauline Oliveros (accordion), Philip Gelb (shakuhachi), Vinny Golia (multiple flutes and single reeds), Jeremy Drake (prepared guitar), Jessica Catron (cello) and Paul Livingstone (Indian string instruments). Supplementing the highly spatialized and dynamic tidal episodes several times a day and the quiet backdrop of the ticking driftwood, LISTEN EDGEMAR contains a 'fountain' component, a row of speakers 32 feet long, mirroring the water feature in the courtyard above. It contains a series of instrumental trills and water sounds in gentle continuous oscillation. A separate trio of speakers defines the space as people wait for the elevator, or as they come into the garage from above and cross the space. Pressing the elevator button causes the pure sine tones that resynthesize the pump noise (our garage harmony!) to be replaced by instrumental recordings of the same notes, with an elaborate three-cornered panning algorithm. This dies away after a few minutes, a mere ripple in the texture. The tones being played are derived from the pump machinery driving the fountain above, in an attempt to 'humanize' the perception of this background noise. Finally, the installation is capable of responding to events in its surrounding environment. The computer periodically samples the live environment at different times of day, adding materials to its library of potential sounds. These episodes will appear at a future high water mark, perhaps the next day or perhaps in the next year. |