The Contemporary Arts Center presents Walking, Sometimes Standing Still, an exhibtion of five-channel field recording compositions by Brendan Connelly.
Artist Statement
“I wander a lot, in my own cities of New York and New Orleans, and when I visit new places – recently, northern Scotland, London, Paris and the south of France, I tote around a handheld digital recorder so when I stumble upon a sonic event that intrigues me, I quickly press record. Later, removed from the original time and place of the recording – back in my studio - the musical qualities of these recordings (pitch, timbre, rhythm, tempo) float to the surface. And I began to interact, to improvise with these documents, using acoustic and electronic sounds – clarinet, analog synthesizers, drum set, harpsichord, all kinds of percussion. Sometimes my hand in the matter is very obvious (The Frogs of L’Esperance); other times I enjoy being stealth, letting the found sound tell its own strange story (From a 5th floor window in Beaucaire, France).”