Community Noise: Multi-Channel Sound Installation Collaborative Installation Project
Scully Gray Box Gallery, SFAI—Fort Mason Campus, April-May 2019
"During the Spring 2019 semester, SFAI’s graduate Collaborative Projects course focused on techniques for producing quadraphonic sound installations. During this intensive course, students learned audio recording, editing, mixing, and processing techniques, and practiced ways of listening informed by the work of Pauline Oliveros. Additionally, students underwent a brief and intense study of computer programming to create algorithmic sound installations and began to learn methodologies and methods for approaching collaboration through a critical indigenous research methodologies framework.
The course culminated at the end of the semester with an exhibition of sound art, Community Noise, that focused on a political moment—which, according to the students, defines San Francisco. For their installation, students chose to reflect on the notion of space within a city that is literally bursting at the seams. This bursting is defined by San Francisco’s rising population, wealth, and cost of living, as well as the implications these factors have on the health, wellness, and culture of local publics in the city, particularly those struggling financially to maintain their lives in San Francisco’s inflated economy."
- Cited from publication in SFAI's 2019 Graduate Catalog
Faculty Leadership: Cristobal Martinez, Director of SFAI's Art & Technology Department and member of the international artist collective Postcommodity
The course culminated at the end of the semester with an exhibition of sound art, Community Noise, that focused on a political moment—which, according to the students, defines San Francisco. For their installation, students chose to reflect on the notion of space within a city that is literally bursting at the seams. This bursting is defined by San Francisco’s rising population, wealth, and cost of living, as well as the implications these factors have on the health, wellness, and culture of local publics in the city, particularly those struggling financially to maintain their lives in San Francisco’s inflated economy."
- Cited from publication in SFAI's 2019 Graduate Catalog
Faculty Leadership: Cristobal Martinez, Director of SFAI's Art & Technology Department and member of the international artist collective Postcommodity
Community Noise Installation Documentation
Documentation by Ryan Kirkpatrick
In two decades the medium rent for communities of color and low-income communities in the Bay Area has risen 30%. This has catalyzed the migration of these communities into racially and socioeconomically concentrated areas. The Bay Area is slowly resegregating. At a divergent point in the process, the homes of some grew expiration dates while for others, the longevity of their ownership was assured. For brief moments, these groups still live side-by-side. Community Noise seeks to sonically represent the tension at this divergent point. In a city of changing demographics deep listening can be difficult and communication is often impeded by myriad noises arguing atop an uncertain future. This work invites listeners to experience that complicated dialogue as a spectrum of sounds ranging from harmful to healing, assumption to knowing, and dissonant to harmonious.
In two decades the medium rent for communities of color and low-income communities in the Bay Area has risen 30%. This has catalyzed the migration of these communities into racially and socioeconomically concentrated areas. The Bay Area is slowly resegregating. At a divergent point in the process, the homes of some grew expiration dates while for others, the longevity of their ownership was assured. For brief moments, these groups still live side-by-side. Community Noise seeks to sonically represent the tension at this divergent point. In a city of changing demographics deep listening can be difficult and communication is often impeded by myriad noises arguing atop an uncertain future. This work invites listeners to experience that complicated dialogue as a spectrum of sounds ranging from harmful to healing, assumption to knowing, and dissonant to harmonious.
Student Collaborators (left to right): Jiaxing Wu, Rebekah Wetzel, Nicholas Mittlestead, Jordan Holms, Sae Yong Lee, Mareiwa Miller, Whitney Humphreys, Ryan Kirkpatrick, Hansen Yang, Merve Sahin, Joanna Ruckman, Blanca Bercial, Alexis Lastomirsky, Lexigis Sanchez Calip, Kate Laster