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Opening Reception Friday, September 17, 2004 6-9 pm Artists' Statement The sound of space is a constant of existence. We continually, unconsciously exist in soundspace, oblivious to the infinite gradation of sound contained in the silence of spaces. Our eyes instantly register the uniqueness of a space while sound offers only the slightest impressions if any at all. But the sound of every "silent" space is unique. The ambient sound of the space, created by wind and thermal currents and the surrounding acoustic properties of the site, is singular and mappable. This sonic identity radiates continually, but is often understood only vaguely - as deep, unexplored subjective knowledge. Living in Prague I became intrigued by the ephemeral but vastly different sounds of large interior spaces — cathedrals, castles and museums. I became increasingly aware of space and myself in the space. I experienced sound-space as a transformative event-place in which self-awareness and the perceptions of phenomena that defined the site stood in stark relief to each other. Informed by this reflexive potential of soundspace, my installations address sonic resonance in relation to light, objects, architecture and space. Room tone or object-issued sounds, as in the intimate roar of a seashell, are recorded, analyzed and stripped to principal resonant frequencies. This resonance is reintroduced to the place of origin as it transforms apparent sonic nothingness into the source of installation content. Inseparable source and content stream in four dimensions. Reiterative sonic resonance shifts the focus to physical space. The sense of self in relation to space emerges. Self-space is reified. The fugitive moment is source to these sonic minutiae that we ignore and relegate to passing time. These moments engender the emergence of recollection. They are the negative space of memory. They are always awash in the backdrop, the negative sound, the aural canvases that constitute the sonic framework of the various spaces of our lives. Upon these sonic frameworks we consciously hear and make sounds. In my installations the negative sound, the pre-existing aural canvas of a particular space, becomes a plastic sonic material itself, as it both references itself and seamlessly folds into itself. By returning these rarified sounds of seemingly inconsequential moments to their points of origin I seek to imply both closure and the infinite, while initiating further metaphor. An installation becomes an indivisible, self-reflexive, art object/performance - a time machine at the intersections of sound, light, object, architecture and self - non-existent without the space and that revealed within its silences.
About the Artist Award winning sound artist, Jeff Talman, has created installations for the MIT Media Lab, The Kitchen, bitforms, Eyebeam, Art Interactive, Art Omi, the Basilica of St. Ulrich in Regensburg, Germany, the Tang Museum and others. His unique achievement in sound art is the reiterative resonance system in which the inherent ambient resonance of an installation site becomes the sole sound source for the work. Talman's installation VANISHING POINT 1.1 (1999) was historically the first work to use this process. The New York Times, WIRED Magazine and other publications immediately recognized this important process and work. Recent awards include a New York Foundation for the Arts Award in Computer Arts and a Gunk Foundation Grant. Recent artist residencies include Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus in Schwandorf, Germany. Talman's graphic and sculptural work relates to the nature of light and sound as primal radiant forces. Large scale welded steel resonators, stainless steel rods and aluminum panels are among the resources for recent sculptural work. Print media work includes spectrographic images of important architectural space resonance including those of the Temple of Dendur in the Metropolitan Museum, NYC, the Temple of Debod in Madrid, the Pantheon in Rome, the Duomo in Florence and dozens of European cathedrals including those in Cologne, Paris, Chartres, Milan, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Sevilla and Toledo. Jeff Talman was born and raised in Pennsylvania, USA where he studied piano. Aside from living in Prague, the Czech Republic, he has lived primarily in New York City where he attended and eventually taught and directed orchestras at Columbia University and City College. He has also taught at the Massachusetts College of Art and produced a weekly show of new music, Airwaves, for six years on WKCR-FM, New York. In June 2004 he presented a paper entitled Architectural Space and Mediums of Self to the International Society for Literature, Science and Art in Paris, France. In July he exhibited a solo show, SEVEN SPACES, featuring a new installation and graphic fine art at the Holzhauer-Hamburg Galerie in Germany. In August 2004 he attended Yaddo, in Saratoga Springs, NY for his 13th artist's residency. After the SONALUMINA-13 installation at Art Interactive in September 2004, Talman will install a major work for the city of Cologne in their cathedral square for the ArtCologne Festival in late October 2004. In 2005 he will return yet again to Germany for a show in Miesbach (Munich) featuring three concurrent installations including those in the massive Heindl-Keller and in the baroque Katholische Stadtpfarrkirche. Currently Jeff Talman is Assistant Professor at Emerson College in Boston where he teaches Soundspace Installation. In the states he is represented by bitforms, NYC. |
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