BREACHING...
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LEVIATHAN
- 2024 - PUBLIC WORKS ADMINISTRATION - NEW YORK, NY -
Printed Circuit Board, Electronics, Speakers, 18-2 Speaker Wire, Chain, Hardware
A spatial audio instrument and composition system, controlling 64 sample accurate 1-bit audio channels. The body of Cathedral-64 throws itself upon the shores of Manhattan in desperate attempt at life.
But each morning when I wake up and gasp and stagger out of bed like a wounded beast, I thank God that he put me exactly right here and nowhere else.
Leviathan repurposes the structure of Cathedral-64, a 64-channel spatial audio installation that ran from June to October 2023 at Harvestworks on Governors Island. The original installation consisted of 64 speakers mounted across the walls and ceiling of a room, with speaker wire runs to each originating from a central pedestal housing an electronic audio system. Upon deinstallation, a skeleton was left behind: wire runs, many exceeding 30ft in length, were now disengaged from their original form, appearing as the carcass of a great sea beast washed ashore.
Cathedral-64 is part of an ongoing body of work using the ShiftDriver Spatial Audio System, an electronic instrument designed to control very large numbers of sound sources using 1-bit audio. Pieces in this body of work are created in an iterative process, each expanding in scope and exploring new spatial and acoustic compositional possibilities using the system. This process builds towards the creation of Temple-65536, the world’s largest spatial audio instrument as a permanent installation open to audiences and composers from around the world.
Leviathan explores the experience of this process from the viewpoint of Cathedral-64’s skeleton. It has discovered what it means to be a finite thing, borne out of infinite potential: it is but a small part of a much larger process of becoming, which as a finite thing it will never see completed. It has likewise discovered what it means to exist in time: gestures at permanence, attempts to live as an object, simply become performance on a different time scale. Yet being alive, it wishes not to die: Leviathan throws itself from the river onto the shores of Manhattan in a final, desperate attempt at life.