Yeti Yarn Bombers Unite!

It is time to add more visuals to my blogging world. So, in the future you can click on the tab above that reads ample ARTworks  to see some of my creative endeavors.  However, just as often you will find links to others, truly incredible talents, whom I have had the pleasure to stumble across as either a traveler on this planet or, when very lucky, as friends.

enjoy,
J

World Wide Communication

Worldwide Communication

It is a quiet day at UAF’s Museum of the North. My daughter’s class tour is over, the children are bundled-up, back on the bus returning to school, and I have a bit of time to look through the exhibits before my next appointment.

On the second floor, off to the side of the Rose Berry Alaska Art Gallery, is an understated panel which reads The Place Where You Go to Listen.  Except for this missive identifying it, the closed door was otherwise unremarkable.

The room is narrow, not more than 200 square feet in all. The ceilings are high. There is a single low bench for sitting.  The space features 14 high-fidelity speakers, 20 feet of glass paneling stretching 10 feet high on one wall, and on this occasion, holding up the opposing wall is a young couple engaged in a sustained form of tantric kissing.

Since the wall is occupied, I sit on the bench and face the softly illuminated panels. The acoustic and visual compositions I am experiencing are unique to this moment and yet they are comprised of every moment that has preceded it. I am listening to time. I am seeing consciousness. I am a little overwhelmed. The Place Where You Go to Listen, an installation created by composer John Luther Adams, is an extraordinary fusion of art and science.

The exhibit is shaped by an advanced series of algorithms creating music from data streams measuring dozens of factors: the progression of night and day, the phase of the moon, different levels of cloud cover, disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field, and us - each of us - as we exert ourselves in the act of living. The light and sound in this room chase patterns, give voice to variation, and illuminate all this information in real-time.

In Alaska’s interior, the smell of wood smoke, the crunch of snow beneath boots, soft shades of new color sweeping the hillsides as winter takes its time melting away; these are the data streams we pull from. Trees which become a blur of pale green leaves, improbably resilient during the brief and fickle spring, and later explode into full summer foliage, are the algorithms, which, inform our choices for the coming season: when to take off the studded tires, how to vote on the Clean Air proposition, or if we need to split the rhubarb before the next growing season.

What if we could experience the planet with the same degree of familiarity? What if we could see or hear the impact of our choices on the environmental well-being of our world in real-time? Would we each take a more active role in securing sustainability? I am absorbed in the effort of sorting out possible applications of a technology that can receive and interpret this data and convert it to immediate feedback for the public when a tinny note ripples through the air. It unfurls into a deeper, more resonant tone, and is punctuated by a booming before shifting again. I wonder if the lovers behind me are adding their own seismic activity to this experience.

I leave behind the couple still unraveling their own mysteries; quietly close the door, and consider how the phrase “Worldwide Communication” has taken on a new level of meaning for me.