manmade mountains and underground river (2010)
processed field recordings and MAX/MSP (6 channel dispersion)
any number of 36' loops

This piece was developed, among several works, during a summer residency at the Goldwell Open Air Museum in Rhyolite, NV, an abandoned gold mining ghost town in the foothills of Death Valley and the Amargosa Desert. 

The materials for this piece were gathered entirely from the desert landscape, in collaboration with Chris Kallmyer, either through our collaborative physical constructions (set of chimes constructed from mining materials, contact mics placed on local fences and shrubs, resonating pitches of metal objects shot back into the desert via large amplifiers placed outdoors, and a large “bottle fence” that Chris created and installed at the site), or conceptual replications (capturing the breath of the desert through real-time computer analysis of wind patterns in the Amargosa Desert). 

Most of all, the focus throughout the compositional process was based on an intense awe of the resilience and severity of the desert climate – as the title suggests, the ability for the desert ecosystem to reclaim the remnants of strip mining operations, turning slag piles back into mountains, and mines into canyons and riverbeds.

The installation operates based on the movements of the desert wind.  In the incarnation of the piece created in a barn at the Goldwell site (as heard in this recording), sensors and microphones were used to detect the direction, intensity, and approximate timbre of the wind at a given moment.  This data was then used to create a corresponding assemblage from the collected field recordings, in which the recordings were dispersed by MAX/MSP through the six-channel surround playback in a manner that most closely matched the wind’s gestures at a given moment.  The resultant sound is a balance of grain-like local level activity (the shifting of rocks and swaying of leaves) beneath larger cascading motions (heard in long bell pitches and other constructions).