"Come Again Another Day"
at the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation 8th Floor Gallery
March 7th, 2024
Precipitation comes when moisture in a cloud becomes too heavy to be suspended anymore and falls down to earth,
to people and places with varying capacities for absorption, porousness and compaction. Heavy rains leave watermarks and clogging
like memories in minds and landscapes. For a compacted city or person who can absorb no more;
flooding, oversaturation, and hopefully floating, ensue.
Part of Cal's Pre-York River body of work, this interactive performance installation was shared and commissioned as part of the 8th floor gallery's "Sight/Geist" series.
A score going back and forth between open periods of exploration and choreographed events filled the gallery with sound, people, quilts, play, soft sculpture, and waves.
The gallery was filled with 3 radio transmitters, 6 radios, 11 pairs of wearable radio headphones, 6 electromagnetic fields, 5 sounding buckets, 10 Sound Absorbers,
and 3 performers; Cal, Becca Rodriguez, and Kwami Winfield.
In each moment of central gathering Becca and Cal would share a piece of fabric watermarked/altered with natural dye and/or embroidered alteration.
The idea of Watermark Memories was introduced through this process and shared interview content.
In the third section of the piece all are invited to record their own Watermark Memories using paper and a water dropper filled with dilluted oregano oil provided by Cal.
Interviews recorded by Cal reflecting on experiences of intensive flooding in New York City, soil pourosity an compaction, and memories of playing in the rain as a
child were sonically featured in this work. These sounds joined a large collection of rain recordings from Cal's Pre-Yok River archive in the aural architecture installed
in the gallery to be explored. This performance seeked to help understand New York City's status as a compacted concrete construction site that should actually be a pourous wetland.
The interviews and movements in the piece help open up alternative futures of pourosity and absorption wether through tearing up the asphalt streets, remediating soil
embracing and confronting vulnerability, or just being kind and playful.
Below are some of the Sonic Artifacts findable in the buckets of the Dynamic Listening Instrument and dispersed Radio transmissions present in the piece for you to explore...
Similarly to the performance of the piece, it you are invited to control the combinations and volumes of these Sonic Artifacts...
Wet Flute Wandering (DLI Track)
Birds in the Brooklyn Rain (Radio Track)
Windshield Wiper Pulses (Radio Track)
Kitchen Heaviest Rain (Radio Track)
Wastewater Treatment Plant Drone (Radio Track)
Sal Watermark Interview (DLI + Radio Track)
Boothe Watermark Interview... (DLI + Radio Track)
Cal is actively seeking more opprotunities to share this infinitely variable work.
For short video demonstrations of the Dynamic Listening Instrument and other sonic tools, Click Here
Wearable radio headphones upcycled radios used to navigate across and blend transmission fields...
PLAY...
Precipitation Sound Absorbers and Pre-York River Story Quilts...
Setups for musical sections of the piece...
Soft Leaves Floating down the Gutter, Jumping in Puddles...
Buckets of the Dynamic Listening Instrument...
Photos by Charles Roussel
Original press release/info
Precipitation comes when moisture in a cloud becomes too heavy to be suspended anymore and falls down to earth,
to people and places with varying capacities for absorption, porousness and compaction. Heavy rains leave watermarks and clogging
like memories in minds and landscapes. For a compacted city or person who can absorb no more;
flooding, oversaturation, and hopefully floating, ensue.
Part of Cal's Pre-York River body of work, this interactive performance installation was shared and commissioned as part of the 8th floor gallery's "Sight/Geist" series.
A score going back and forth between open periods of exploration and choreographed events filled the gallery with sound, people, quilts, play, soft sculpture, and waves.
The gallery was filled with 3 radio transmitters, 6 radios, 11 pairs of wearable radio headphones, 6 electromagnetic fields, 5 sounding buckets, 10 Sound Absorbers,
and 3 performers; Cal, Becca Rodriguez, and Kwami Winfield.
In each moment of central gathering Becca and Cal would share a piece of fabric watermarked/altered with natural dye and/or embroidered alteration.
The idea of Watermark Memories was introduced through this process and shared interview content.
In the third section of the piece all are invited to record their own Watermark Memories using paper and a water dropper filled with dilluted oregano oil provided by Cal.
Interviews recorded by Cal reflecting on experiences of intensive flooding in New York City, soil pourosity an compaction, and memories of playing in the rain as a
child were sonically featured in this work. These sounds joined a large collection of rain recordings from Cal's Pre-Yok River archive in the aural architecture installed
in the gallery to be explored. This performance seeked to help understand New York City's status as a compacted concrete construction site that should actually be a pourous wetland.
The interviews and movements in the piece help open up alternative futures of pourosity and absorption wether through tearing up the asphalt streets, remediating soil
embracing and confronting vulnerability, or just being kind and playful.
Below are some of the Sonic Artifacts findable in the buckets of the Dynamic Listening Instrument and dispersed Radio transmissions present in the piece for you to explore...
Similarly to the performance of the piece, it you are invited to control the combinations and volumes of these Sonic Artifacts...
Wet Flute Wandering (DLI Track)
Birds in the Brooklyn Rain (Radio Track)
Windshield Wiper Pulses (Radio Track)
Kitchen Heaviest Rain (Radio Track)
Wastewater Treatment Plant Drone (Radio Track)
Sal Watermark Interview (DLI + Radio Track)
Boothe Watermark Interview... (DLI + Radio Track)
For short video demonstrations of the Dynamic Listening Instrument and other sonic tools, Click Here
Wearable radio headphones upcycled radios used to navigate across and blend transmission fields...
PLAY...
Precipitation Sound Absorbers and Pre-York River Story Quilts...
Setups for musical sections of the piece...
Soft Leaves Floating down the Gutter, Jumping in Puddles...
Buckets of the Dynamic Listening Instrument...
Photos by Charles Roussel
Original press release/info