Test Bed is a durational study of electronic sound integrated into the natural environment. A custom synthesis system generates a continuous drone tuned to harmonize with sounds naturally present in the Pioneer Works garden. Sound emitted from multiple sources creates subtle points of acoustic interaction that change with the listener’s position, allowing sound to be explored dimensionally as an object or landscape rather than as a time-bound performance or recording. Conceived during Emmett Palaima’s residency at Pioneer Works, the installation serves as an ongoing study of materials and composition techniques for long-term outdoor sound installation, in service of future artworks.
About the Artist
Emmett Palaima is an artist working with electronics and esoteric processes of sound creation. His work is conceptually rooted in the ideas that technology and magic are one and the same, and that electricity is a manifestation of the divine or elemental forces underlying physical reality. He creates instruments which explore the experience of sound as an embodied, physical process and the sculptural beauty of the systems used in sound creation.