Saxorcism, 2016

Winner of a 2017 Artist Research and Development grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts.

Saxorcism is a 4-channel reactive sound installation where the audience is drawn into a permeable cube and immersed in a shifting soundscape from all sides. Every sound originates from recordings of saxophones made and manipulated by the artist. The audience is invited to alter what they are hearing via physical interaction with two glowing balloons hovering within the space that are constantly varying different aspects of the aural environment.

Saxorcism resides at the tangled nodes of composition, sculpture, collective improvisation, and synthetic field recordings. The sounds heard in the piece are never exactly the same twice, and what the audience hears is completely dependent on how the audiences decides to be listeners. It questions notions of what constitutes the authentic sound of an instrument, and the frameworks we use to judge musical composition and virtuosity.