Happy new year, and new decade, to everyone following my activities. And what better way to inaugurate the new decade than with a sonic installation based upon the notorious acoustic attacks upon American diplomats in Havana. The installation piece designed around this concept, Interference [Havana], is an attempt to recreate the psychoacoustic phenomena presumed to be responsible for the damaging effects associated with the original incident (i.e. intermodulation distortion), all in an environment where participants can enter and leave at will. As such, this is an examination of the growing usage of acoustic phenomena as a component of either warfare or, more broadly speaking, the growing inventory of coercive techniques available in the service of geopolitical strategy.
A much more comprehensive audio-visual explanation is available here.
This is an ongoing project shared between Alex Keller and myself, and has already undergone a couple of iterations: one showing at the 'Resonant Lung' adjunct of Austin's Dimension Gallery, as well as another at last summer's NMASS festival. The next phase will appear at the beginning of February, as part of the Blanton Museum's Soundspace series - a regular event that sees the museum space being converted into a laboratory for various manifestations of sound art and experimental music. The newest iteration will feature a new video component, and more refined means of maximizing the sonic impact than in previous versions.
More news on this as soon as I get it!