feedback [ barry jones ]

I just read an article on the composer John Luther Adams in the most recent New Yorker.  His work is another instance where sound, music, and art are intersecting in our current cultural climate. I was extremely taken by Adams’ piece “The Place Where You Go To Listen” which is currently on view at the Museum of the North in Fairbanks, Alaska. In this site specific installation,

“information from seismological, meteorological, and geomagnetic stations in various parts of Alaska is fed into a computer and transformed into an intricate, vibrantly colored field of electronic sound”.

The installation consists of five glass panels which change color depending on the time of day and the season (the image above shows the installation at noon in the summer).  The sounds emmanating from the installation also depend greatly on the weather, season, the movement of the earth, and the aurora borealis.  Patterns of bass can be heard during very small earthquakes and

“shimmering sounds in the extreme registers—the Aurora Bells—are tied to the fluctuations in the magnetic field that cause the Northern Lights”.

I have never had much of an interest in visiting Alaska, but I certainly do now.  I couldn’t find video or audio of this piece on the web.  Let me know if you stumble across something.(quotes taken from the New Yorker article)