Sound Installation
Barry Schwartz, San Francisco
Introducing the player:
Barry Schwartz` main occupation is to expose and demonstrate natural
phenomena that take place, for example, in electrical discharges (high voltage)
and in expanding and contracting metal under the influence of external factors
such ascold and heat.
The use of electronic media turned out to be a stable factor in his work. Since
the use of electronic media merely leads to a loss of direct communication, he
mainly uses video and audio in real-time processes. These he can then
steermechanically or manually. His work, one might
consider to be typically American, this in the sense that there is not shown
any respect for tradition or form and that you get what you get, as something
raw and sensational. (Alex
Adriaansens)
The project:
The central element of this new piece is a Beam Gantry , a 7 to 9
meter-tall steel structure used to suspend high-voltage vires in the
hydro-electric industry. These large steel structures can be seen in the
country-side all over the world and are thus universally designed icons.
However, rarely can they be seen in the center of an urban landscape.
This tower would function as a structure from which the performer, human or
mechanical, generates a live situation consisting of sound, video,
andmechanical interactions.
While the tower supports physical structures designed to generate and broadcast
sound and visual elements to the immediate surroundings, it also represents a
telecommunications icon to the public.
To this structure would be attached various elements and materials: high
voltage piano strings running the vertical length of the tower, deconstructed
video monitors and closed-circuit cameras suspended on adjustable cables
attached to the tower, concave steel dishes (which look like large satellite-TV
dishes) specially designed to reflect live audio from piece; and a "waterfall"
of non-conductive fluid resembling water pouring over the high-voltage strings
and equipment from above.
There would be a reservior pool of this fluid at the base of the entire
structure. In this pool of fluid would be the anchor for the high-voltage
strings as well as various pieces of video equipment mostly televisions removed
from their protective boxes and laying in the pool of fluid like pieces of
consumper and industrial garbage, although they will be in use (turned on and
connected to playback tapes as well as live camera feeds).
Other elements in the pool are such things as a bird-bath nozzle and other
home-landscape-beautifying products, to conceptually merge and contrast the
pieces of industrial equipment, both light and heavy, with consumer-leisure
objects and ectivities.
Barry Schwartz: He has been working with sound, sculpture, video and
electricity for the past ten years. His work has been performed and exhibited
in museums, on freight trains, telephone poles, boats, bridges, colleges and
universities, sanitariums, and many other diverse sites. In recent
years he has begun developing large scale, environmental works integration
various electronic technologies and the human body to create physically
interactive events and exhibitions.
Selected events/exhibitions:
1986 Retina Burn , California Packing
Company, Oakland. 1987 Pro Arts, Oakland. 1988 Breathing Walls /
Electrical Sound Storm, Outside Sound, Arts Commission Gallery, San
Francisco, Ca. 1989 Le Musee D`honneur Miniscule, New Langton Arts,
SanFrancisco, Ca. 1990 Optic Nerve, Manifestation For Unstable Media
111, V2-Organization, `S Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. 1991 Ars Electronica
Festival For Art And Technology, Voest-Alpine, Linz, Austria. 1992 Sound
Symposium, Memorial University Of Newfoundland Art Gallery; St. John`s,
Newfoundland, Canada. 1993 Public Tranceport, National Bavarian Theater
at Marstall, Munich, Germany; Int. Performance Art Festival, Dresden.
Soundinstallation in Osnabrück in cooperation with Kampnagel, Hamburg.
