The main campus of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn NY is open to the public, and they maintain an outdoor sculpture park. I visited in 2018 to record the vibrations of several large sculptures. I’m particularly interested in Richard Heinrich’s trio “Epistrophy”, “Straight No Chaser”, and “Round Midnight” since they seem to be named after Thelonius Monk albums!
Through my contact microphones I could hear the steel panels conducting sounds from hidden mechanical tunnels below the grass, accompanied by the sirens and birds. It seems fitting that these arrow-like spires would draw subterranean sounds upwards. Here’s an excerpt:
This recording is part of my ongoing practice of “auscultation”: listening to the vibrations of objects and underwater environments, revealing hidden interiors like a doctor’s stethoscope probing the systems of the body. This helps me to consider my relationship to the more-than-human as I stretch my ears to practice other ways of listening, communicating, and inhabiting the world. See my other recordings and writings related to auscultation.
