ROCHESTER ART CENTER

   
   
   

 

Viv Corringham

Sound Replaced
February 6 – April 19, 2009

The exhibition Sound Replaced explores people’s special relationship with familiar places and how that links to an interior landscape of personal history, memory and association.  The work is comprised of a series of sound recordings, each enclosed in a purpose-built enclosure.  Each of these enclosures contains a unique composition of 2 to 6 minutes duration that can be heard by raising the lid. The works in this installation derive from recordings made during artist residencies in which local people shared their special walks and places with the artist. All sounds were recorded in the four locations of Brooklyn, San Francisco, Cal State University Fullerton and Grand Marais, Minnesota, and include conversations on the walks, environmental sounds, and vocal improvisations.  Also within the boxes are objects based on what was found along the walks. Visitors are invited to open and close lids as they wish, making new and changing compositions from the overlapping mix of sounds.

Viv Corringham is a British sound artist, vocalist and composer, based in Minnesota and London, who has worked internationally since the 1980s.  Articles about her work have appeared in Organised Sound (UK), Musicworks (Canada), Playing With Words (UK) and For Those Who Have Ears (Ireland). She received an MA in Sonic Art with Distinction from Middlesex University, England, and has had many awards, including a 2006 McKnight Composer Fellowship.  Her work usually involves walking, as a method of investigating people’s relationship with place and memory. The experiences and materials gathered on these walks find their way into installations, headphone works and concert pieces.