“What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.”
SOUNDINGS: An Experiment In Ecological Creativity
A project by The New Eye
(May 2 - May 11)
Bay Area-based artist collaborative, The New Eye, relocates music to mediate between the human and the nonhuman, between nature and culture. In 2014, The New Eye sent the band Halcyonaire to Anza Borrego Desert State Park in Southern California to create a series of field recordings for their song “Star Eyes.” The journey became the inaugural SOUNDINGS session, challenging the band to compose music from the inspiring geography, sonically mapping location through field recordings and documentary film.
Presented in StoreFrontLab’s street-level glass facade, a curated wall of video footage will be on view 24 hours a day, converging on Friday May 6 with an exclusive screening and discussion of the documentary SOUNDINGS. Director Eric Herron, producer Geoff Saba, journalist Daniel Duane and The New Eye production team will join the conversation.
While SOUNDINGS is based on the intangible link between sound and place, it is also motivated by the uncertain and volatile condition of independent music, with particular attention to the displacement of musicians from urban centers, from which they have historically practiced their craft. The New Eye works to conduct experiments in ecological creativity, giving creators the opportunity to mediate cultural artifacts that raise awareness of human-sustaining natural systems.