Audible Interruptions: Transmutation Passages I-IV

Title

Audible Interruptions: Transmutation Passages I-IV

Subject

Site specific sound installation

Description

Cassette edition documenting Cook's sound installation in the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis' elevator for the Audible Interruptions sound art series in 2014.

Audible Interruptions is a series of site-specific sound installations that investigate the sonic identity of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Lois' architecture.
Nathan Cook often presents live sound art performances that invite unique interactions with the audience and where patience, commitment, and engagement are rewarded with meditative and thought-provoking soundscapes. With Transmutation Passages, Cook uses the controlled environment of the elevator to explore the relationship between sound and space. Four separate pieces rotate over the course of the exhibition, each using sound to encourage a novel way of experiencing the movement of the elevator.
I. Driving: Spatial Displacement Digital stereophonic audio, 6:23

Spatial Displacement uses cassette recordings Cook made while driving on highways. The raw field recordings from under the hood, outside the car window, and inside the vehicle were edited, layered, and arranged. The result provokes memories and induces the feeling of horizontal movement while the setting of the elevator provides a simultaneous, contrasting experience of vertical movement through space.

II. Network Overheat Digital stereophonic audio, 4:03 minutes

The claustrophobic setting of the elevator is paired with an anxiety-inducing electronic score, encouraging passengers to question their level of trust and to what extent they are willing to surrender to technology.
III. Verticality: The Fountain of Bliss Digital stereophonic audio, 5:00 minutes

Verticality: The Fountain of Bliss is a layered arrangement of digital field recordings of several local water fountains. The work playfully reinforces the vertical movement of the elevator while inviting poetic interpretations of the sound of falling water, re-contextualized in an unlikely interior.
IV. Enter as Flesh and Exit as Gold Digital stereophonic audio, 4:00 minutes

Enter as Flesh and Exit as Gold was created by manipulating the pitch of several electronic oscillators in order to generate subtly shifting waves of harmonic overtones. At first listen, the work is awash in static. The chamber of the elevator facilitates focused attention however, revealing a myriad of pulses and beating patterns.

Creator

Nathan Nolan Newrohr Cook

Source

Recorded during the Audible Interruptions sound art series, January 24 – April 13, 2014.

Publisher

close/far recordings, Contemporary Art Museum St. Lous

Date

2015

Relation

http://close-far.com

Format

C21 Cassette, Chrome Tape, 19:26 minutes (6:23, 4:03, 4:00, 5:00)

Language

N/A

Type

Site specific sound installation

Identifier

WCAC0004

Collection

Citation

Nathan Nolan Newrohr Cook, “Audible Interruptions: Transmutation Passages I-IV,” WPB, accessed November 8, 2024, https://tpb.worm.org/items/show/12483.

Output Formats