echo surveys by murmer

in 2012 i began a new series of performances which i call echo surveys. the premise is straightforward: each is entirely unique and site-specific; all sounds heard are either produced live from materials found in the space, or have been prerecorded there during a pre-performance reconnaissance visit. this is an attempt to retain a specific and direct connection with each space and each audience, and to retain a sense of risk associated with each performance.

these first three experiments occurred during a visit to the eastern united states in the fall of that year. each had it’s particularities: the first was in the galleria of the baker center for the arts at muhlenberg college, in allentown, where i was given permissions to ‘play’ the harry bertoia kinetic sculptures which are on display there. the second was in my hometown, boston, where a very sparse performance space proved to be quite a challenge for finding sound sources. and the third, at bruce tovsky’s space in the brooklyn navy yards, expanded outwards, as the exceptional environment and visual collaboration with bruce led us to make our initial recordings, not just in the performance space, but all around the navy yard. for the performance bruce’s film was screemed, accompanied by found sounds from the yard mixed with the live playing of found materials in the space.

while usually i am not partial to publicly releasing recordings of my live performances (as they generally don’t make sense without the immediate connection to space and audience), i like having the ability to compare these three very different outcomes of this experiment, and to draw attention to bruce’s great filmwork. you can hear the three performances streaming above (sound only), or watch bruce’s film with my sound here:

http://www.murmerings.com/releases/echosurveys/

patrick tubin mcginley (aka murmer) is a sound, performance, and radio artist based in estonia. his work is about small discoveries and concentrated attention; it focuses on the unnoticed but extraordinary sounds that surround us. he works with spaces, objects, resonances and people in composition, performance or simply collective action, in the exploration of perception via attentive listening.

murmerings.com