Some Speak, Some Listen

Modified Turntable, Speakers, Electronics  //  2011

Some Speak, Some Listen is an analog, 6-channel sound scultpure.  A modified turntable spins a record patchworked with conductive tape, which, as it makes contact with a series of brushes, opens and closes circuits to each speaker individually.   Using audio recordings taken around Queens, the sculpture drones away methodically, the quiet pattern slowly deteriorating into a rhythm of static as the brushes wear through the tape.

Created as an artist in residence at the Queens College Art Center, and presented in the Express+Local: NYC Aesthetics exhibition in 2011.

It was springtime in Queens, and the garbage cans were beginning to bloom.

 

The sweet stench of alley-less streets, the numbing roar of after-thought expressways, the concrete-over-concrete, the soviet-esque structures — New York City’s own little bloc to the east.  A proud proletariat, we go to class, we work, we repeat, we repeat, each day a little different than the last… but only a little.  And always those towers of Manhattan, peeking through gaps in row houses, just often enough to remind us who’s in charge, offering us something to strive for, something to push back against.