Center of Gravity

about: Made in 2004 for a visual/sound installation with artist Susan York in the Betty Rymer Gallery at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Susan made one of her "graphite rooms," in which the walls and floor are coated with a neutral paint base infused with powdered graphite, buffed to a silver-gray sheen (the photo is color, not B&W). A wooden pier extended from the doorway out into the middle of the room, so that the viewer was surrounded by a gray expanse punctuated with several blocks of solid graphite and a stack of white porcelain shards, evoking the contemplative space of a Japanese rock garden.

The sound was made entirely with my own breath and real-time electronic processing. Each individual breath was treated as its own miniature composition. These short pieces are separated by silences of random length.

This is a greatly condensed excerpt of a much longer piece (six hours for the installation). The drastically remixed CD version is about 20 minutes long.
credits: from Three Rooms, released 10 August 2009
license: Some rights reserved
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