Infinite City (in the woods)

For the White Rabbit Open Air Art Festival, I collaborated with the residency's founder, Tom Young, on a site-specific, sculpture installation in the woods of Red Clay farm in Upper Economy, Nova Scotia.  Tom asked me to create a soundscape to accompany his sculpted vision of a burning city, an ode to urban landscapes and the people that occupy them, nestled in the remote Canadian wilderness. 

The motivation behind his vision was this: Lots of money is poured into planting trees within the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia in order to bring people in contact with nature. (A slightly absurd investment given the access to natural landscapes just at the edge of the city's borders). Tom wanted to bring "unnatural" cubed forms to the forest to play with this idea. It was a satirical jab to those festival goers who came to the woods in order to escape the city. 

His buildings, nestled in a beautiful mossy landscape, were lit on fire from the inside so they resembled a glowing city skyline. As the city began to burn, I broadcast my city soundcape over the the airwaves of the farm's pirate radio station and streamed the sound through speakers hidden among the trees. 

Over 150 people gathered to listen to the imagined, infinite city I had created from my own recordings I'd collected on visits to cities across the globe: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris, Malaga, Palo Alto, San Francisco, and my car radio as I drove up the California Coast.