seth cluett

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a spatial asyndeton

2009
bailers twine, mirror, sound
dimensions variable
site-specific exhibition, architectones, arc-et-senans, france


this audio recording was taken walking around the circle shown in the picture above. the audio is unchanging, however, the changes you hear are based on your acoustical place along the circle.


In rhetoric, an asyndeton is an oratory device whereby one purposefully eliminates conjunctions in a series of related sentence fragments or clauses. Philosopher and sociologist Michel de Certeau mobilizes this term in relation to space to illustrate the erasure of the journey from memory when one conceptualizes their travel between two points. The suppression of this connective tissue in the perception of one's spatial movement creates islands, arrivals, almost a collage of spatial memory. Reflection, consideration, and return can cause the movement-between to take on the identity of arrival. Points whose status was once on the order of the 'on-the-way,' become filled in; these points resolve into a continuum of familiarity as more and more spatial geography comes into aural-focus. In this work, I am trying to draw attention to the shift in perceptual attention and resolution. Points once marked as arrivals (content-full) become points of departure as exploration and experience reveals a topography in sound that maps the void as geography. The movement-between becomes content; the points now act as junctures, pixels, or way-posts to mark the borders.



doleros (audio-tourism at ringing rocks)

2008
found objects, carbon steel, speaker cones, bailer twine, lampwire, light bulbs, sound
dimensions variable
solo exhibition, diapason gallery, new york, ny



doleros (audio-tourism at ringing rocks) is an installation that explores my experience of audio tourism at the Ringing Rocks State Park, a boulder field in rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Featuring the largest diabase (dolerite) deposit in North America, Ringing Rocks Park offers visitors the opportunity to explore the sonic qualities of geologic detritus that produce different ringing qualities when struck. Visitors wander among these boulders and igneous rocks with hammers as they seek out the best-sounding specimens and compare and share their discoveries. The audio installation at Diapason echoed the experience at Ringing Rocks Park; the surround sound consists of layered field recordings that reconstruct the actual physical space, and small metal constructions dispersed throughout the room represent and acknowledge the uniqueness of the rocks' sounds by resonating independently through individually wired speakers.



rumour

2007
maple cubes, oil paint, photographs, push-pins, speaker cones, speaker wire, sound
17" x 5" x 4"
fresh picked, the arts center for the capital region, troy, ny



this piece is part of a series of works exploring the iconography in ovid's myth of rumour:

"at the world's center, triple boundary
of land and sky and sea. From here all things,
no matter what, are visible; every word
comes to these hollow ears. Here Rumor dwells...

...there is no quiet, no silence anywhere,
no uproar either, only the subdued
murmur of little voices, like the murmur
of sea-waves heard far-off, or the last rumble
of thunder dying in the cloud."



studies of surfaces, ice: above/below

2007
rosewood and cherry blocks, oil paint, speaker cones, photographs, speaker wire, sound, light
60" x 8" x 8"
denniston hill foundation, woodridge, ny
solo exhibition, diapason gallery, new york, ny
fresh picked, the arts center for the capital region, troy, ny



studies of surface - ice: above/below is part of a series of works exploring the sound of walking. by presenting in detail a viewing and a listening as though from the perspective of the feet, theseexamine not only the subtlety of our senses of hearing and seeing but also that of touch - how, when one steps onto something out-of-place, our feet stop before our minds are able to consciously recognize what has happened. In the installed version, the macro-photographs of ice, buried in the block of wood, draw the viewer into a place close enough for the audio to emerge and the surface of the paint to take on a tangibility that is less present from a distance.



karesansui

2007
antique pine boards, white wash, speaker cones, 1mil glass beads, sound, light
19" x 10" x 11"
fresh picked, the arts center for the capital region, troy, ny


Based on the juncture between perception and philosophy inherent in the construction of Japanese zen gardens, karesansui presents two speakers resting horizontally in a box constructed of 200-year-old white-washed boards. The speakers, installed in knots in the wood, seem to be a part of the box-construction. The installation makes no audible sound. The speakers, however, vibrate at a speed related to the rate at which neural impulses are sent when a person is entering what is called alpha-wave meditation. The small reflective beads in the large speaker pulse, like grains of sand, while the beads in the small speaker spin in constant motion. To look at both simultaneously is very difficult, but oddly relaxing. Ideally, one becomes aware of the oscillation of attention and perception as different perceptual modes come into focus with one another.



cloud-to-air

2003/2008
steel tray(s), water, video projection, sound, subwoofer, multi-channel audio
dimensions variable
exhibition:
kill your timid notion, dundee contemporary arts, dundee, scotland, uk
solo exhibition, diapason gallery, new york, ny


Field recordings of an entire summer's lightning storms with thin, quiet tones are treated and spatialized through a multi-channel audio system. A video installation of heavy rain on shallow water is projected onto shallow water shaken by thunder. The gallery is almost completely dark save a bright rectangular pool about an inch deep. The light coming from the pool is a 40-minute video loop of a puddle during a rainstorm. An algorithmically generated thunderstorm plays through a 24-channel audio system. Parts of over forty rainstorms as well as recordings of heat lightning/thunder enter the space in waves following the audio model of the storm recorded at the same time as the video.

cloud-to-air



mediations

2003
steel tray, water, video projection, subwoofer, sound
48" x 48" x 5"
s/light, albany center galleries, albany, ny


A shallow stream in the Millers River near Amherst MA, the surface of which was blown by wind. The sound of the wind overloading the microphone is played through two subwoofers underneath a tray of water onto which the video is projected. The vibration of the tray creates a pattern in the waters surface similar to the light reflection on the water of the original video.

meditations



all that's liquid melts onto glass

2002
single channel video, television
dimensions variable
solo exhibition, deadtech gallery, chicago, il


A single channel video, three channel sound installation consisting of a single unmoving shot taken though the window of my home during the winter onto the snowy field outside. The video appears white while the sound of an old cast-iron tea kettle begins to boil. As the tea kettle heats and the water boils, steam builds on the glass of the window. As the steam builds and builds, drips begin. The drips are slowly replaced by fog, and then more drips. Slowly and patiently the tea-kettle runs out of water and begins to crackle incesantly from the heat, the heat dries the window and the piece ends.



masked verticalities:common fate

2001
speakers, electrical disconnect boxes, sound
dimensions variable
resynthesis, betty rymer gallery, the school of the art institute of chicago


masked verticalites


A four-story stairwell adjacent to the gallery serves as a transitory path between studios and classrooms, gallery space and museum, offices and restrooms. I made recordings of individuals' everyday interactions with the stairwell: opening and closing doors, walking upstairs and downstairs, talking. I made fifteen recordings of examples of each of these actions from various locations in the stairwell, and by analyzing the recordings discovered the acoustic changes that these actions initiated in the space. Electrical-disconnect boxes intended to blend into the utility of the space contained a system that played sound files of sine-tones, tuned such that their introduction to the space (during one of these recorded actions) would cause a masking or covering of the ambient sounds. The result was that regular users of the stair often paused in a space that had always been transient and architecturally invisible, noting a phenomenal change; they wondered if the lights were part of it, if they were seeing things, if the tones were 'really there' or part of the existing resonance of the space. In short, they began to play.



psycho-physical response time 4'54"

2000
4 channel video, quadrophonic sound, television monitors, video projection
dimensions variable
book/ends arts festival, state university of new york at albany, albany, ny


a video of tuned television static with a soundtrack of manipulated television white noise taken from the video source is projected on two facing walls of a white room, two televisions face each other on the walls opposite. the volume of the noise and the stroboscopic effect of the video stops short of the psycho-physical response time of the brain to instense stimulus, which if left to continue would cause nausea or loss of consciousness. Instead, the result of stopping the audio and video is a sense of peace and calm.



precedence affect

2000
speaker cones, microscope slide glass, concave mirrors, light, sound
dimensions variable
autumn uprising, the institute of contemporary art, boston, ma


Five sound sources are placed through the public spaces of the museum. Each plays recordings containing either tones synthesized from measurements made of the acoustic properties of the space or audio recorded at exact location of the loudspeaker. Each speaker also plays back sound from microphones placed in the lobby at a distance from visual component. As such, both the sounds of the audients/onlookers, as well as the sound of the space (standing waves, airconditioner hum, water pipes, electrical hum, lighting hum) are played through speakers back into the space, disconnected from their source. Mirrors atop the speaker cones collected ambient light from the space and redirect the light onto the walls. This redirected light is then modulated by the vibrations of sound from the speaker.



PHOTOS

departing ground 1-3

2003
digital lightjet prints
40" x 30"
solo exhibition, the gallery at deep listening space, kingston, ny


2.5 mSec of heat

2002
digital lightjet prints, stills from video
4" x 3"
solo exhibition, deadtech gallery, chicago, il