Exploring the spaces between live sound and visual art, the long-running music series Sound Horizon moves to the newly reopened Minneapolis Sculpture Garden this summer.
Animating the landscape and sculptures with sonic intrigue are three nationally recognized sound artists who transform incidental ambient noises into fascinating soundscapes that reshape our perception of the park’s art and greenery. In case of rain, performances will be moved into the Walker galleries.
- June 15: Stephen Vitiello
Visual and sound artist Stephen Vitiello was originally a punk guitarist. He has composed music for independent films, experimental video projects, and art installations, collaborating with such artists as Nam June Paik, Tony Oursler and Dara Birnbaum. In 1999 Vitiello was awarded a studio for six months on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center’s Tower One, where he recorded the cracking noises of the building swaying under the stress of the winds after Hurricane Floyd. As an installation artist, he is particularly interested in the physical aspect of sound and its potential to define the form and atmosphere of a spatial environment. A professor of kinetic imaging at Virginia Commonwealth University, he lives and works in Richmond, Virginia. - July 13: Byron Westbrook
Brooklyn-based artist and musician Byron Westbrook has been performing and showing experimental sound work internationally since 2008, and has shared bills with Tony Conrad, Oren Ambarchi, Rhys Chatham, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Eliane Radigue, and Lawrence English, among many others. Westbrook holds an MFA from Bard College, where he studied with Marina Rosenfeld, Marcus Schmickler, and David Behrman. He also worked with Phill Niblock’s Experimental Intermedia Foundation from 2005–2014. Following two well-received releases under the moniker Corridors, his debut LP under his given name—Precipice on Root Strata—was named #4 Best Experimental Album of 2015 by Pitchfork. He is currently visiting faculty in the fine arts department at Pratt Institute. - August 3: Olivia Block
Chicago-based composer and media artist Olivia Block’s recorded works and multimedia installations include combinations of field recordings, chamber instruments, electronic textures, found sounds, video, and curated 35mm slides. Her current work reflects her interests in site-specificity, ethnographic sound, architecture, and found/archival materials from the 1950s–1990s. Her studio-based compositions are published on And/Oar, Cut, Erstwhile, Glistening Examples, NNA, and Sedimental, among other labels. She has created site-specific multispeaker installations for the Sanitorium in Sokolowsko, Poland; Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, Chicago; and the Olympics in Turin, Italy, among others. She has performed in festivals throughout the United States, Europe, Scandinavia, and Japan.
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