Category Archives: Installations

Collaborations, Installations

Doug Hall’s Chrysopylae

Gallery

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I joined Jim McKee and Joan Jeanrenaud in realizing the soundscape for Doug Hall’s large-scale video installation Chrysopylae.

Chrysopylae is a double video projection that was commissioned by the For-Site Foundation for its exhibition International Orange (May 24 – October 28, 2012). The exhibition included the works of sixteen artists and was part of the 75th anniversary celebrations of the Golden Gate Bridge. All of the projects were installed at Fort Point, the historic 19th century fort located beneath the southern span of the bridge. Chrysopylae (Greek for Golden Gate) was the name given to the straight between San Francisco and the Marin Headlands by the explorer John C. Fremont in 1846.

The video was shot with two HD camera that were synched to one another, allowing for the creation of large, two-screen panoramas. The video focuses on the bridge, seen over time and under differing weather conditions, and on the immense container ships that pass beneath it every day. The two synchronized projections (6’9″ x 12′ each) loop every 28 minutes.

Mixing Chrysopylae at Fort Point. It was cold.
Mixing Chrysopylae at Fort Point. It was cold.

The sound track was composed by Jim McKee and Joan Jeanrenaud, with sound design and additional composition by Jeremiah Moore. The project was produced by Starr Sutherland.

Recording sessions took place at Fort Point, Jim’s North Beach studio, Joan’s home, and my Lower Haight studio.  Mix was completed on site.  Playback was via a very satisfying 3.1 Meyer UPJ system with cardioid subwoofer array.

https://vimeo.com/43634333
password: goodsound

In 2013 San Jose Museum of Art hosted a version with 5.1 channel mix.

Doug Hall website

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Installations

Synchronous Forest 3.0

Video

A meditation on environmental collapse: Slow and gently crossfading images projected onto a large spiral of diaphanous fabric, drifting from a rotating tree-trunk bark-scape to a daydream of gold-green flowering branches wafting in breeze.

Sound of urban beehive activity, filtered so that the bees themselves are nearly absent. Followed by a soundscape of distant crickets and electrical wires in mist, punctuated by the violent and banal passing of a minivan speeding through the landscape.

A small bench awaits in the center of the spiral, a place to sit and listen to small, naked speakers dangling from wires, playing heavily processed and edited bird recordings.

At the center of the spiral, a “trunk” is formed of discarded etched panels, bright copper on white fiberglass.

A wicker garden bench is positioned outside the spiral, so one might sit and regard the spiral as one might regard a garden.

A listener at Synchronous Forest 3
A listener at Synchronous Forest 3

In making it, I was thinking about the relationships and interfaces between humans and nature. As beings who regard ourselves as beings, we can see ourselves as part of nature or as outside of it.

work details:

  • Single-Channel video projection.
  • Four audio channels derived from field recordings of urban wildlife in San Francisco’s Mission District and environs.
  • Materials: Fabric, Video, Sound, Benches, Speakers, Space, Circuit Boards. 18′ x 25′ and 11′ tall.

This video is a four-minute walk through the gallery space.

Narrated Walkthrough:

Installation work for CCA Playspace Gallery, San Francisco, July 2009

Prior versions of this material were exhibited:

“Synchronous Forest” in collaboration with Lindy Lyman, Regis University, Denver CO, 1998

“Synchronous Forest 2.0” in collaboration with Lindy Lyman, Museum of Outdoor Arts, Englewood CO, 1999