description

Intervention v.1 is experienced as immersive sound. It is a dynamic structure, which responds in each iteration to a particular socio-geographical condition. In this iteration, the work responds to the condition of weekly tests of the Franklin County Outdoor Warning System, which sounds every Wednesday at 12:00 PM in Columbus, Ohio. The structure can be inhabited by any number of performers. The performers execute each iteration by cycling through audio fragments on MP3 players, connected to customized megaphones. The sonic vocabulary is derived from the pre-existing environmental condition, but is also expanded. In this iteration, the sound vocabulary is taken from the sound of tornado sirens. In this way, Intervention is inserted into a situation both temporally and materially. However, both parameters become extended and transfigured through inhabiting the action.

Just before 12:00 PM on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009, 8 performers unfurled across the main public space on the campus of The Ohio State University. Each performer carried an MP3 player and megaphone. At noon, the sirens of the Outdoor Warning System began to sound during the weekly test. This moment signaled the beginning of the action, and each performer began to execute their unique pattern of playing through the 34 total prepared sound fragments, taken from the sound of a synthesized siren. These 8 separate sources, combined with the multiples of audible warning sirens, fused to create a wash of sound encompassing the entire public performance space. After the siren test had finished, the combined sounds of the performance continued, carrying with it the memory of the initial condition, as it became further and further deconstructed, ultimately dying away. At the end of the action, each performer walked away from their position, signaling the end of the performance.