GESTURES and CLUSTERS
Two Collaborative Soundscapes
An immersive experience of two sound art installations, Gestures/Murmurations and Cluster Fields
November 2, 2024 - February 19, 2025
Opening Day: Saturday, November 2, 6-9pm
GESTURES and CLUSTERS: Two Collaborative Soundscapes
Artists: John Driscoll, Phil Edelstein and Cecilia Lopez, COMPOSERS INSIDE ELECTRONICS
GESTURES and CLUSTERS is an immersive installation of two self-running sound art works: Gestures/Murmurations, a collaborative work by John Driscoll and Cecilia Lopez, and Cluster Fields, a collaboration between John Driscoll and Phil Edelstein. Both works stem from the artists’ extensive multidisciplinary backgrounds in electronic music composition and performance, as well as the development of unique instruments, computer software, robotics, sculpture and installation. Using custom sculptural loudspeakers (including 55-gallon metal drums, plastic pipes, fishing poles, large mica wings and robotic rotating speakers) as well as the creation of hundreds of sound files combined with software for focused sound localization and distribution contribute to original sound scores. Each sound installation is specifically tuned to take advantage of the architectural resonances and acoustics of the large open exhibition spaces of the Zuccaire Gallery, while allowing individuals to experience their own soundscapes as they navigate the spaces.
Formed in 1973, COMPOSERS INSIDE ELECTRONICS is a group dedicated to the composition and performance of electronic and electro-acoustic music using both software and circuitry designed and constructed by individual composers.
Cluster Fields (2018-2024) is an evolving collaborative sound installation work by John Driscoll and Phil Edelstein that has grown out of their work with David Tudor’s Rainforest. A series of modular suspended sound objectshave been developed as a visual and sonic compositional structure. Each cluster is constructed from a selected archetype: cantilevered globes with focused speaker horns, dual resonant mica wings, pleated plastic pipes and resonant fishing poles. Each cluster consists of two to four sound objects.
These sculptural objects are activated with audio transducers, horn drivers, and small conventional loudspeakers. Each cluster forms a multi-channel speaker array that creates focused sound fields that visitors walk through that transform over time. The clusters are arranged around a gallery/museum space. There is an overall orchestration that allows the objects to sound both individually and together, offering a rich sonic space for audience exploration in and around the clusters. The initial version of the work was commissioned and premiered at the University of Maryland in January 2018.
Gestures/Murmurations is a self-running collaborative sound installation by composers/sound artists Cecilia Lopez and John Driscoll conceived in 2022 and realized in 2024. Both artists have been fascinated with physically rotating sound and its impact upon sonic reflections. Driscoll has had a long history of developing robotic rotating loudspeaker systems and Lopez has created works for rotating 55-gallon drum speakers. After a performance together they decided to collaborate on a new work using a combination of Driscoll’s recent multi-axis rotating speakers and two of Lopez’s rotating drum speakers.
As a site-based installation, the work changes depending upon the acoustic spaces it is installed in and is tuned to each space to optimize the moving sound architecture with both a visual and sonic choreography. The audience is encouraged to move through an ever-evolving soundscape.