Sound Scene 2025 is coming. Save the date: May 31-June 1

2024 Featured Works

Across the Open Spaces (Performance), KHORIKOS

KHORIKOS’ forthcoming album, “Across the Open Spaces”, is a collection of unaccompanied vocal music that explores distance and darkness and confronts loneliness. Conceptualized as an immersive experience, the ensemble recorded their album by standing in a circle around a 360° ambisonic microphone. KHORIKOS will perform selections from the album in different spatial arrangements, inviting the audience to change their own listening positions in between pieces and move around freely encouraging hearing from different perspectives.

Alternative Energy Powered Electronic Instruments with Vaux Flores (Workshop, 1 hr), Travis Johns

Over this 1-hour workshop, participants will build a small, stand-alone electronic musical instrument powered by alternative sources of energy. Ever thought about holding your own backyard solar rave? Now’s your chance.

Workshop Registration via Hirshhorn

Clear Channel (Performance), Awad Bilal, Don Godwin, Mary Jane Regalado

Clear Channel, a Washington, DC-based trio featuring Awad Bilal (Too Free), Mary Jane Regalado (Downtown Boys, Gauche) and Don Godwin (Too Free, Tonal Park) emerge as a force of joy. They are an eclectic mix of artists and activists fusing funky post-punk with humor, bouncy bass lines, and celebratory rhythms. Described as “making party music on the brink of psychic annihilation” by the Washington Post, Clear Channel is distinctly DC and glowing.

close|  distant (Workshop, 20 mins), Heike Kaltenbrunner, Mathias Lenz

Made possible with generous support from the Austrian Cultural Forum Washington

Join artist Heike Kaltenbrunner to explore the sonic possibilities of sound and space through the unique pipes of close| distant. During this 20 minute workshop and performance participants (no musical experience required) are invited to transform into instrumentalists. With guidance from Kaltenbrunner, activate soft tones and sculpt fffrrrrs, hums, and hisses to orchestrate an original and collaborative soundscape. Kaltenbrunner will offer tips to participants to help them hone in on steady hand movements and more playful gestures to bring forward unique drones and timbres. 

Workshop Registration via Hirshhorn

Dance of the Planets (Interactive Installation), Alex Wand

Dance of the Planets is solar system sonification by Alex Wand and Desert Magic. It began as a live performance piece that maps orbital speed to tempo and planetary position to stereo image. In collaboration with coder Luke Williams and designer Stephanie Layton, the piece developed into an installation work with options to activate, deactivate, and randomize planet rotation to create soundscapes that unfold differently every time. With a tradition of performing this piece on the solstices, we invite listeners to attune to the interweaving rhythms of celestial motions and earthly seasons that are orchestrated by the sun. 

Echoes of an Ancient Sun (Interactive Installation), MJ Alexander, Edward Knight, Kiegan Ryan

1,200 years ago, 1,200 miles west of here, a powerful cultural center flourished amid ceremonial mounds built to align with the sunsets of solstice. Echoes of an Ancient Sun is an interactive GPS-powered experience featuring on-site field recordings and evocative soundscapes inspired by the history and mysteries of Oklahoma’s Spiro Mounds.

Epitaph of the Earth (Interactive Installation), Shinnosuke Komiya

Epitaph of the Earth is an instrument that transforms rocks’ unique characteristics into enchanting melodies, offering a new perspective on geologic time. This creation changes how we interact with the earth’s ancient elements, turning the simple act of collecting rocks into an adventure through the deep, untold stories of our planet’s past.

Expanding Ground (Workshop + Performance), Althea Rao, Layla Klinger

Expanding Ground is a workshop and durational performance in which participants take turns using their bodies to weave ground patterns to form a large-scale lace work over the course of one day. As thread-bearing human bodies interlace in acts of complex entwining, we reflect on singularity versus multiplicity, involved in the production of knowledge and dynamic social relations.

Workshop Registration via Hirshhorn

Infinity In Our Hands  (Interactive Installation), Kristine Diekman, Lisa Mansfield, Liz Waugh McManus

The Sun is a dynamic star, a constantly changing hearth of light and heat providing life on Earth. In 5 million years the Sun will start to die, expanding and losing energy. Working with scientific data gathered from the Chandra Observatory, NASA’s flagship mission for x-ray astronomy (and other sources), the project explores the lifecycle of stars through sound, touch and light. It includes speculative fiction, star sonifications, field recordings and glass renditions of astral data, to provide an experience of the interconnectedness of stars with human life. 

Voice performers: Finley Stapleton-Hamilton, Kristine Diekman, Sally Broatch, and Nick Rheinberger.

With thanks to our project partners, Nicolas Bonne (Tactile Universe), James Trayford. (STRAUSS), and the Smithsonian Institution, and voice performers Finley Stapleton-Hamilton and Nick Rheinberger.

Karnatik Music’s Celestial Compositions (Installation + Performance), Balakrishnan Raghavan, Alex Wand

This work features a vocal recording of seven 18th-century songs from South India that describe the celestial planetary compositions of the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. With 3 different entry points, you can choose your preferred way to experience these aural worlds and be mindful of the planetary life world we inhabit.

Longest Day / Longest Night  (Interactive Installation), Peter Green, Carolyn Zaldivar Snow

Longest Day / Longest Night is a practice in collective memory and digital preservation recalling sounds from historical solstice dates unknowingly cataloged in smartphone videos and public archives. This interactive installation invites museum visitors to pick up a telephone and dial an extension from a geographic location labeled switchboard, and listen to sounds that may feel familiar or perplexing on the longest day and longest night on our planet.

Luminous Being (Performance), Audrey Wright, Geoff Robertson

Luminous Being is a multi-sensory sound and visual performance, featuring classical violinist Audrey Wright adorned in a garment displaying sound-responsive light patterns created by artist Geoff Robertson. Including music by Wright, Bach, Ysaÿe, and von Bingen, the program explores narratives of luminescence throughout nature and human experience.

Pulses (Workshop, 45 mins), Jason Snell

Pulses is a biofeedback music workshop where the rhythms of the heart and mind converge to create a collaborative symphony. During this 45 minute workshop, participants utilize biosensor headsets to trigger a unique octave of notes based on their brain activity. The group’s collective heart rate sets the tempo. Together they weave a dynamic composition as neural rhythms synchronize to create orchestral pulses. Following the session, participants have the opportunity to reflect on the interplay between their neural activity, heart rhythms, and the emerging music, fostering a deeper understanding of collective creativity.

Workshop Registration via Hirshhorn

radiance & resonance (Performance), Claire Alrich, Andrew Toy – with Vivian Chen, MissJessica Denson, Emi Kawashima, Patricia Mullaney-Loss, Thomas Northrup

radiance & resonance is a time-lapse of the summer solstice. Mirroring the movement of the sun, this performance uses sound, movement, and textiles to construct and then deconstruct a visual and sonic landscape. Using a devised score, Andrew and Claire build a collaborative audio-visual experience that equally utilizes movement and sound. Both the choreography and the music are inspired by natural unfoldings in nature, building from a calm and meditative state to excited celebration and then back to where it began.

(Re)Evolutions / Solstice Cycles (Performance), Stephanie E. Vasko

(Re)Evolutions / Solstice Cycles is a live, twenty-minute audiovisual performance which will take the audience on a journey through time, space, and the cycles of nature, focusing from the darkness of Winter Solstice 2023 to the luminosity of Summer Solstice 2024. This piece will start in darkness, silence, and sparsity before evolving through time, temperature, and luminosity into sounds (recorded, embodied, sampled), objects, and movements from and inspired by the Winter and Summer solstices. (Re)Evolutions / Solstice Cycles will end with opportunities for collaborative/community sound and scene making.

Sonic Altar (Interactive Installation), Claire Alrich, Michelle Harvey, Emi Kawashima, Maya Renfro, Gia Serano, Dag Yeshiwas

Sonic Altar is an interactive installation where audience choices shape a dynamic soundscape and visual display. This immersive experience explores the solstice theme by emphasizing the cumulative impact of individual choices on the natural world.

Study #4: Light, Affect, Sound (Installation), Bureau of Sensory Affairs; Alma Laprida and Nate Scheible, co-chairs

On May 18, 2024, The BSA conducted Study #4, examining the relationship between light and sound. Nine artists were situated in a dark space, exposed to different intensities of light, and asked to “translate” their sensations into sound. The study was guided by questions including: How do we perceive light? How is that perception reflected consciously or unconsciously through emotions and memory? And is that reflection concrete or abstract?

The study is presented as an installation, including a short video documentary of the process, audio pieces based on the recordings, and a presentation of the data within the BSA’s workspace, including notes, graphs, objects, and photographs.

The Yin & Yang of the Sun (Interactive Performance), The Pseudoscientists with Wu Shen Tao Martial Arts; Sam Miller, Julian Weaver, Kenny Chrzanowski, Alex Zitto

A visual and auditory celebration of the Solstice combining modular synths with movements of Tai-Chi.

时 (Time) (Interactive Installation), cash, Susan Zhong

时 (Time) is a unique experience that involves a special cultural perspective. Through sonic and visual elements, audiences will sense the change in time from one solstice to another within an immersive environment.

Trying It (Installation), VeJai Alston, Danyela J. Brown, and Tony Bush (DMV Kiki Nights)

Trying It is a land art collaboration with DMV Kiki Nights that troubles the notion of an underground Ballroom Scene. DMV Kiki Nights documents and promotes the Kiki Ballroom Scene in the region, despite a scarcity of accessible, stable spaces in Chocolate City. The month of pride inundates the community with daylight, yet four June balls have been canceled this year due to venue shade. Trying It consists of a hillock covering a speaker looping recorded audio of a kiki ball: Rocheny Pricien’s (@godiva_sterling) The Pride Kickoff Ball 6/1/24 at The Pocket, DJ: VeJai Alston (@pumpdabeat), MC: Tony Bush (@dmvkikinights), Judge: Danyela June Brown (@se3ingth1ngs). The bodiless footprint of the work reflects the fungibility of time-based queer genres.

What Goes Around, Comes Around (Interactive Installation), David Greenfieldboyce

Every year has the same days and many of the same events, and they are similar in some ways year-to-year, but always different. The memories of these repeated events echo and stack up, and together they make the substance of our lives. Audiences are invited to step into the center of a ring of speakers addressing a microphone. The words, songs, or sounds that they make will travel around them in circles and layer into a revolving, live soundscape.