Guest artist Todd Bowser talks about the process of creating his sound piece The Dream House for Scarcely Awake the current exhibition in our large gallery below. He will be present in the gallery for a performance coinciding with artists talks on Saturday June 10 from 1-3.

This work comes from a process of prepared listening. I keep some kind of recording device on hand all of the time. Usually I have a stereo field recorder, but in a pinch, it may simply be an app on my phone. Over months of random audio capture using different portable devices, I developed a library of aural snapshots of spaces I was growing into - within a new home, traveling across a new city - both figuratively and literally in a new state. In the smartphone recordings, the quality takes on a severe unpredictability. At times, sounds distorted and degraded across media as I moved audio files across devices and formats in order to explore and work with them. As I have collected sounds on a mass scale, there are sounds that stick out as unrecognizable to me, but have still found their place within this whole. The time and place of these artifacts are effectively removed as dozens of sounds are assembled into this partly contrived and completely other experience, initially captured through serendipity, then guided into place by instinct and emotion and an embrace of unpredictable forms.

The link below contains a sample of these basic recordings:

https://soundcloud.com/minorfires/sets/dream-house-raw-audio

Todd Bowser: Sound Serendipity