"Node, Lee, Resonance" - Ironworker's Memorial Second Narrows Crossing

Typical system output from Node, Lee, Resonance, my generative audio/video installation as shown at "All Are Temporary Worlds", the School for Contemporary Arts MFA Spring Show, April 14, 2022.

It was shown on a 4k TV screen with 4.2 surround audio. Audio and video effects and remixing programmed in Max8. Video was recorded in 4k on a Canon EOS 90D. Audio recorded at 96k, 32-bits on a MixPre6 II using a Røde NT-SF1, an LOM Geofón, a JrF C-Series contact mic, and 2 Cold Gold Audio contact mics.

This work is a response to time spent under the south end of the Ironworker’s Memorial Second Narrows Crossing sitting, exploring, and recording the sights and sounds. Custom software (made with Max8 from Cycling ’74) recombines audio and video clips recorded at the site in real-time, in a non-predetermined order and with varying playback settings. Sonic and visual effects are also applied in real-time. Analysis of the audio as it is played back affects the video, and similarly the video affects the audio. Presenting the site as a live, generative media playback system reflects the nature of the site as a living system of interactions, constancy, and change.

The video consists of moving snapshots. Each shot is from a fixed camera position. Though nothing changes and there is no development, there is activity in the shot. They are moments of oscillating and cyclical dynamics. The sound is recorded right where the bridge meets the land. There are two types of audio recordings: recordings using an ambisonic microphone that captures spatialized, directional sounds, and recordings using contact microphones attached to the bridge that pick up the vibrations of the bridge itself. The spatialized recordings document all the sounds that arrive from every direction; the contact microphones record sounds that emanate from the bridge itself.

[The sound is omnipresent, enveloping. It is combustion and thrumming. It is the detritus of supply chains and commuting: coupling and shunting, loading and dumping, shuttling and steaming. It is the intersection of a multitude of transportations, the vector of going somewhere. The bridge itself is a damper, resonating as it absorbs and refracts. The crook of its span forms a lee from the currents of the traffic.The space in that crook is protected by neglect, that kind of invisibility that comes from being insignificant, unaccounted for. The space is feral, re-wilded by its invisibility. It has escaped grooming and control. The space harbours other castoffs. Here motion is cyclical, rhythmic, meandering.]

Picture of a media installation in a gallery. A large TV on one wall and four speakers forming a square around it. The room with has three white walls that are 8' high, above it is open with beams and ducts. — As installed at 611 Alexander Street.

A man and a camera on a tripod stand under a bridge. The bridge is yellow steel struts and lots of graffiti. The photograph is wide angle so the bridge appears curved. — Shooting some video under the bridge. *Photo: Jim Bizzoccchi.*

A man in a ball cap and a burgundy collared shirt is looking at a camera on a tripod underneath a yellow bridge. — Shooting some video under the bridge. *Photo: Jim Bizzoccchi.*

A microphone with a furry wind screen and on a stand is connected to a portable recorder with red circular lights. They are under a bridge amongst steel pipes and struts, and chainlink fencing. — Ambisonic recording setup. Sound Designer MixPre6 and a Røde NT-SF1.

A guitar capo is used to attach a contact mic to a rusty steel part of the bridge. — Contact mic affixing strategy: guitar capo.