--------------------------------selected sound art---------------------------------

general equivalence, or pillow talk for the olfactorily impaired worker
2012

General Equivalence, or Pillow Talk for the Olfactorily Impaired Worker is inspired by a perfume created by Microsoft VP of Sales Patrick McCarthy. McCarthy got the idea for the products “His Money Cologne” and “Her Money Eau de Parfum” after reading about a Japanese study allegedly proving that the smell of money pumped into a factory increases the efficiency of its workers. The box containing the perfume bottle also includes shredded bills.

In preparation for the piece, I collected descriptions of the smell of money from English-language literature available on Google Books. I used every phrase except one, which was racist. Then, I read the script over a purchased commercial Muzak-style track.  General Equivalence was streamed live on Ustream.tv for listeners at Beton 7 in Athens, Greece as part of 2012’s Electric Nights Festival of Electronic Arts. The resulting recording will improve the efficiency of anybody working while listening to it, even those unaware of their labor (after all, post-industrialist economies have recoded play as work).

hashtagconfession
2011

hashtagconfession documents the collective affect of English-language Tweeters on the third and fourth of August, 2011.  To create the piece, I gathered a large number of Tweets all tagged “#confession,” arranged the Tweets by subject, and repositioned them in list form.  Then, I recorded a Mac computer voice reading the mass confession aloud.  What emerged is a series of sometimes contradictory, always emotional thoughts on sex, death, fear, wrongdoing, love, and racial and national identification.  The computer voice adds an element of humor to the piece as well as a surprising tenderness.

hashtagconfession was exhibited in Kollorod, Sweden, at Stian [con]temporary Art Gallery and later in as part of KChung, a low power transmission art project in LA’s Chinatown.