Aural Examinations

By Dr. Rebecca Epstein

Just when you thought you had heard everything, along comes a very different something. This Saturday night, listen up along SoundWalk 2005, a sound art experience taking place in the East Village Arts District of downtown Long Beach.

“We weren’t trying to be original, because that whole idea is passé,” says Kamran Assadi, a local restaurateur and one of the founders of FLOOD, a Long Beach artists group that conceived the event. “Rather, we wanted to create a partnership between the artists and the community and put Long Beach on the map as a destination for art.” But first they had to handle the lack of exhibition venues: “There are very few places down here to show art work,” Assadi continues. “So we needed to do something that didn’t require indoor spaces or conventional galleries.”

And so emerged SoundWalk, an interactive showcase for sound-based sculptures, installations, and performances, which this year will feature the work of approximately 60 international artists (double from last year). With participation from artists, merchants, city officials, and the public, this second annual event asks you to walk sidewalks, alleyways, and into several stores between Fourth Street and Ocean Boulevard, Elm Avenue and Atlantic Boulevard and heighten your awareness of the sounds that surround you. While most of the works will be presented outdoors, those with projected images will be exhibited inside four retail establishments that they’ll (hopefully) complement, where they’ll remain until September 7. “It’s not easy to convince 40 businesses to embrace this,” says Assadi. “You try to tell them what a sound installation is, and they still think of it as music. They don’t [initially] see it as a medium all its own.”

Sound art’s most famous practitioner may be John Cage, but Assadi suggests you leave your preconceptions and “aesthetic scars” at home. Also try to stay through the duration of the event, as all the works “read differently” when it’s light than after dark. “There were two types of people who came last year,” says Assadi, “those who knew about the show, and residents who had no idea and stumbled upon it. By the end, everyone was asking of almost everything, ‘Is this an art piece?’” Car alarms never had such potential.

SoundWalk 2005. East Village Arts District, downtown Long Beach. Sat. 5 p.m.-10 p.m. Free. For specific locations and additional information, visit SoundWalk.org.

House Plant Picture Studio

8.01.05

Sound Walk - Long Beach August 20

Even though HPS is one of the most successful and concerned independent art and music sites in Long Beach, we're not that supportive of local art...or local music for that matter. Visual art in Long Beach mainly takes two forms...(1) pretty, semi-realistic paintings of the ocean and sailboats...and (2) abstract and ugly paintings of the ocean and sailboats. Sure, we like oceans and sailboats, but oceans and sailboats do not an exciting art movement make (egads!)

There's a trendy, pseudo-artsy area in Long Beach called THE EAST VILLAGE ARTS DISTRICT (what a mouthful) - The city of LB and other caring, cultured people have attempted to MAKE IT into a groovy arts commune and all-around cool place.

On August 20, a bunch of experimental music types are doing their annual Sound Walk. They call it SoundWalk, without the space between the 'd' and 'W' - who knows why they dropped the space (??)...we prefer to call it Sound Walk (leaving the space intact)

We went to the Sound-Walk last year and it was kind of fun...other than the fact that a few of the sound exhibits stunk like urine (on purpose) and some of the exhibits were so hidden that we couldn't find them. Regardless of the smell, you're likely to find some top-notch experimental East Village Arts District "soundscapes" at the SoundWalk...opps, Sound Walk

The Sound Walk website below has an entire mp3 album of audio from last year's exhibit...not exactly the kind of stuff you'll want to play at your next Tupperware party...but maybe if you have mosquitoes you want to get rid of, this Sound Walk audio will do the trick

see ya at the...Sound Walk posted by • B E N B E N E K • at 11:55 PM

Ice Cream Man Review

Soundwalk - Long Beach

So every town has it's own Art Walk these days. Usually the first or third Friday of each month. Once, in Ashland, my truck broke down just as I was going to hit the art drag. A bunch of friends and I pushed it through as all the folks around couldn't figure out if it was a broke down Ice Cream Truck or an art piece. Ha.

Friday night in Long Beach, FLOOD took it one step further with their Second Annual Soundwalk. Four square blocks in the downtown arts district were converted to everything art. Picture shows are fun but why not incorporate pictures with sounds and booze. (or Maté if your bored). Parked the ice cream truck in the old SST parking lot and rounded to corner to find my way into a couple galleries. The first was art obsessed with the Simpsons and the second was displaying works by Robert Fontenot. Dude brought in what looked like the innards of a WWII submarine. Oscillators and Dials and doo-dads created a swirling hypnotic soundscape that was hard to leave. Especially when there are cool embroidered art pieces making words like Slut, Bomb, and Falter beautiful. Ran into Scott, who helped put everything together for the exhibit, and Joseph X Negro out side chatting it up. Joe handed me a piece of paper that said "The sound of a telephone ringing". Dope....

So far, So great. Wandered down the street a bit and noticed a cat tucked away in some shadows creating more beautiful noise. A spinning wheel with overflowing water had to be spun. Then, little alien like chirping lunch box thingees were blinking from a nearby tree. Some other artists were camped in front of a local cafe making art on the fly.

One of the highlights of the night was Koo's. Normally a place I'd go to see a rock show, it had been extensively transformed just for Soundwalk. An over-tweaked piano greeted everyone upon entrance then a shack that looked like it might have been the Unabombers played creepy old style news reels. There was sound coming from everywhere. Not loud or annoying, more blippy and trippy. There were a set of stairs you could walk up and down that responded with appropriate tones. One of the coolest pieces was in the far back room. After listening to it explained a couple times, I'm still not sure what it is/was. Basically you walked inside the cylindrical cloth exhibit with video being broadcast on it. Then, as you moved around, little lites tracked your movements and filled in the necessary soundtrack. ????, got a cool pic of it though.

Some other weirdness lie around every corner. Sneezing Spirituality, folks lying/frolicking on a gallery floor, a computer redesigned to produce random noises that somehow became coherent music, everyone had their own different take on what Soundwalk was supposed to be. That's what made it all work. Nothing was quite the same. And it shouldn't be. Can't wait to get Bessy in there next year. With enough planning, I think we can blow some socks off, and of course, give away some ice cream. Good job. Go Long Beach!

Ended up at Prospector a couple hours late to check out Telomere Repair, something I've been needing to do for a while. Blistering, ear bleeding, destruction was the perfect ending to a night devoted to new, strange, and different sounds. Looking forward to seeing them again, just won't forget the earplugs next time. Bar napkins just don't cut it.

Los Anjealous

Recap: SoundWalk 2005

Posted by Ryan on Sunday August 21st

Last night’s magical pre-sunset hour: SoundWalk, Long Beach. Wandering around a few blocks in the East Village Arts District while keeping an eye out for sound installations, I may have reached an epiphany: the immediate blocks encircling the Broadway/Linden intersection are home to more coffee shops per capita than Silverlake’s Rowena corridor and all of Westwood combined. I’m telling you!!

Coffee in hand, it was now time to do some Sound Walking. Choices included live sound shows, interactive sidewalk installations, in-store installations and swarms of people sharing funky headphones at every turn.

Although many entries were earnest, I have to say the ones that worked best for me were the incidental, quasi-hidden speakers on sidewalks such as those placed strategically by Carrie Yury and Redux on Broadway. Example: you’re walking innocently enough under a tree until a creepy voice from the branches whispers “Raspberry compote…Flavours of nutella…” Laugh, but it worked. It also triggered the memory of listening to Barry Adamson’s Moss Side Story in high school, for some reason.

Before heading home I stopped by Machine Project in Echo Park to peek through a hole in the floor at some fake bones. I think I’ll end with a quote from the flyer I received at the show, also available on their website:

If you write upon the Palm of your Hand, or upon Paper with the said Gum, what ever you write will appear all on fire, and the Letters may be read a long time after; but you must have a great care, that you do it softly, and to put it into Water, as soon as you have done, for if it happen to fire ’twill burn the place most dreadfully.

Press Telegram

8.11.05

Listen up!

Don Jergler / Staff writer

Do your ears deceive you?

They may.

Haunting voices, electronic static, bleeps, beeps and myriad strange sounds and images will emanate from the East Village Arts District today.

A preview of SoundWalk 2005, set for Aug. 20, will be given today in gallery shows at Koos Art Center, 530 E. Broadway, and Open bookstore, 144 Linden Ave., from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., and at Utopia Good Food and Fine Arts Restaurant, 445 E. First St., from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The preview coincides with the Second Saturday ArtWalk festivities that take place each month in the East Village near downtown Long Beach.

SoundWalk, produced by the artist group FLOOD, features a host of inventive sound art, much of which is accompanied by sublime images or sculptures.

Last year's inaugural program showcased 30 artists and drew nearly 1,000 people, according to its organizers.

On Aug. 20, more than 60 installations will go on display in an area bordered by Ocean Boulevard, Broadway and Elm and Atlantic avenues, with an extension to galleries on Elm Avenue between Third and Fourth streets. Participants include local artists, as well as artists from as far away as Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

From from 5 p.m to 10 p.m. people can browse installations on sidewalks, inside businesses, art galleries, a nearby community garden, court yards, and inside residential buildings.

A reception will be held from 5 p.m to 6 p.m. at Koos, 540 E. Broadway. A closing reception will be held at 10 p.m. at the Basement Lounge, 149 Linden Ave.

Additionally, Koos and Utopia will have sound installations running through Sept. 7.

Experimentation with electronic sounds as an artistic medium dates back as far as the 1950s, but the genre has garnered little attention from the masses, said SoundWalk organizer Shea M. Gauer.

"When you say sound installations," a lot of people don't know what that means," said Gauer, a member of FLOOD and a co-owner of Open book store, where some of the installations will be located.

Installations include a variety of combinations with visual and audible components, such as sculptures, environments, installations and performances. Outdoor sound installations perform in concert with the sounds of the East Village. Some installations will be for sale.

Aside from allowing people to experience sound art for the first time, Gauer believes SoundWalk will be an introduction to the everyday sounds that most people would never hear otherwise.

"It gives people an awareness of what's sonically around them at all times," Gauer said. "People will walk around SoundWalk and hear any sound and assume it's part of the event. You just become more of an acute listener."

While static pieces play on a loop for passersby to hear and see, several interactive pieces will be on display that recognize and react to movement or touch. There is a video-audio piece that senses movement and alters its sounds. An interactive sculpture allows people to step toward it and bring about au ditory fluctuations, or you can stand on it and hear compositions.

Some installations have only sound, while some provide a headphone and chair for people to listen to recordings. Being showcased at The Academy apparel store on First Street is a CD on which is recorded environmental sounds from people talking on a street in Azzone, Italy.

Well known L.A. area artist Steve Roden will give a five-hour live performance with video projection and manipulated sound sources, in which he blends prerecorded sounds and accompanies the composition with stringed and electronic instruments. Roden will also do a field recording of sounds at the event and implement those into his work.

An untitled piece of "found sounds and found images' in the ballroom of the historic Lafayette building on Linden is a sort of psychedelic version of a 1970s era slide-show presentation with grammar les sons for gradeschoolers.

The sounds from the audio portion have been remixed, with voices and sentences rearranged, or slowed down — some of the sentences are coherent, others not — and images have been reordered.

"I'm hoping that the end result will be more than the sum of the parts," said the artist, Glenn Bach, a 40-year-old Belmont Heights man who makes his living as the office manager of the English Department at Cal State Long Beach.

Bach views the piece as a way to introduce people to alternative ways of viewing language, images and the learning process.

"It's all about subverting the whole idea of trying to explain the system of language, the system of understanding. How we observe the world and how deal with the world around us is we try to organize it into structure," Bach said. "By representing the information in an unexpected way, the audience will hopefully come away with a better under standing or an appreciation of the way information is experienced."