New York|Stop. Hey, What’s That Sound?
If, as the sound artist Stephan Moore likes to say, the laptop has become the 21st-century folk instrument, then the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in Katonah has propelled itself to the forefront of that development, commissioning and bringing to its 90-acre campus an exhibition of sound art featuring 10 works by 11 laptop-wielding artists.
“In the Garden of Sonic Delights,” which opened on June 7 and will close on Nov. 2, offers works that, in the folk tradition, address global issues. But the works are also local in the most immediate sense, growing out of their creators’ affinity for specific spots amid Caramoor’s formidable flora and fountains, said Mr. Moore, who is curating and contributed to the show.
A sense of place is clear in Mr. Moore’s piece, “Diacousticon,” a playful commentary on the surveillance state, built in, over and around the Sense Circle fountain. The work refers to the philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon — an influential circular prison design that allows a single watchman to guard all the inmates — with microphones, loudspeakers and robotic instruments attached to the fountain’s circular dovecote. The hardware listens and responds to ambient noise in accordance with an algorithm Mr. Moore created.
“That’s the music of it,” he said.
Not far from the fountain, on an open patch of grass near the picnic area, a piece called “Coronium 3500 (Lucie’s Halo)” was making music that, like that of “Diacousticon,” was playful and reactive to the environment but distinctive in tone and timbre. Powered by the sun, the work, by Scott Smallwood, consisted of 12 devices that, around midday, emitted a chirping, beeping cacophony of melodic patterns drawn from a pentatonic musical scale.
Mr. Smallwood’s focus on the sun was shared by Annea Lockwood’s installation, “Wild Energy.” But her sensibility contrasted markedly with his. Rejecting algorithms, she made solar oscillations — which had been recorded by satellites and sped up 42,000 times to make them audible to humans — the opening of a piece that wove bits of infrasound sped up, and ultrasound slowed down, into a 46-minute tapestry. (Infrasound involves sounds of less than 20 hertz, ultrasound those higher than 20,000 hertz, both outside the range of normal hearing.) Fed through speakers hidden strategically in the dense vegetation near the Cedar Walk, the piece’s darkly rumbling bass overwhelmed Mr. Smallwood’s bright treble tones ringing faintly in the distance.
No such issues detracted from Mr. Bielecki’s third collaboration, “We Fall Like Light.” In it, he and Laurie Anderson transformed a niche at the exhibition’s far east end into a meditation on time, fashioning a modest fountain whose spout, triggered by the recorded croak of a Hudson Valley frog, adjusted the frequency of the water’s flow so that, when viewed through specially adjusted strobe glasses, it appeared to be moving backward. Time seemed to be rewinding and folding in on itself, raising questions about the very nature of narrative.
Such questions were also fodder for Betsey Biggs, who, like Ms. Anderson, offered a watery take on nonlinear narrative. For her “Sunken Gardens,” visitors donned headphones that amplified electromagnetic waves given off by induction loops hidden under Caramoor’s sprawling Sunken Garden. As visitors strolled the garden, they happened on the buried sounds — bubbling bits, spoken-word excerpts from Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and the like — piecing them together and creating their own narrative streams.
Exhibitions that plumb such depths can stretch a budget, and the $400,000 price tag for “Sonic Delights” required some cost savings along with grants and individual contributions, said Jeffrey P. Haydon, the chief executive officer. But, he added, the exhibition will expand Caramoor’s reach; five other artworks are part of the commission, each displayed at a different institution in Westchester County.
More to the point, perhaps, the exhibition could lead to broader programming. Mr. Haydon said that, for example, the Knights, a chamber group with wide-ranging interests, have discussed collaborating with sound artists when they play Caramoor in September.
“That’s the big, ambitious goal,” Mr. Haydon said.
“In the Garden of Sonic Delights,” an exhibition of sound art, is running through Nov. 2 at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, 149 Girdle Ridge Road, Katonah. Tickets: $5 to $15, children free. Information: caramoor.org or (914) 232-5035.