The Shape of Sound: Sonic Responses to Daniela Cascella's En Abime

What shape does sound take? How can sound inform our knowledge of a space's shape? Can sound help shape our lives and even influence the world around us? In her book En Abime: Listening, Reading, and Writing, Daniela Cascella continually returns to the interactions between sound, silence, and the world around them. Much like words, sounds can take on many meanings depending on their surrounding context. A scream can mean excitement. Terror. Pleasure. A sigh can signify exhaustion. Sadness. Contentment. Peace. The same can be said for silence. Every sonic experience has another side, the potential for misunderstanding--the shape of sound begins to emerge. Hearing a sound repeatedly might bring on a sense of ritual, or might dull our senses, turning something meaningful into little more than background din. Sounds can inform our understanding of the world, and the world around us assists in making sense of the sounds and silences we encounter. This exhibit acts as a sonic response to En Abime, exploring the various shapes that sounds and silences can take and how sounds shape our understandings of ourselves.

Referenced Sounds

Guitar and Electronics 1

Electric guitar with synthesizer/fuzz. The signal is simultaneously distorted and dropped in pitch one or two octaves, depending on attack and tone (and basically whatever the pedal feels like doing). Recorded on a Zoom H6.

Guitar and Electronics 2

Electric guitar with reverse delay pedal. The reverse delay takes the signal and plays back short phrases in reverse order. With the repeat volume at max and no decay, the effect created is essentially high frequency feedback and uncontrollable repetition.

Guitar and Electronics 3

Electric guitar with flanger and chorus. With both the flanger and chorus signal 100 percent "wet" the oscillations are deeply felt; the rate of oscillation, however, is relatively slow so the listener can "feel" their way through the timbral changes.

Guitar and Electronics 4

Electric guitar and ring modulator. The ring modulator takes he signal from the guitar and feeds it a low frequency oscillator, creating the vibrato effect, and the ring modulator, which essentially produces new frequencies around the given frequencies. The results is often wild, microtonal...

Guitar and Electronics 5

Electric guitar with vibrato and reverb--perhaps the most "normal" sounding. Reverb cranked all the way up makes the signal sound as if it were in a big empty room and far away, while the vibrato cuts in and out creating a choppy effect, or the effect of a rotating speaker.

Highway Sounds - Morning

Ramp to I-490 W from Culver Road in Rochester, NY; morning. Cars can be heard passing by at various speeds, with moments of heavier traffic. The sound of the damp pavement makes the tires on the road more audible. Recorded on a Zoom H6.

Highway Sounds - Afternoon

Ramp to I-490 W from Culver Road in Rochester, NY; afternoon. Cars can be heard passing by at various speeds, with moments of heavier traffic. The sound of the damp pavement makes the tires on the road more audible.

Highway Sounds - Evening

Ramp to I-490 W from Culver Road in Rochester, NY; evening. Cars can be heard passing by at various speeds, with moments of heavier traffic. The sounds of the damp pavement makes the tires on the road more audible.

Barista

A barista makes a latte. Recorded in Rochester, New York at Glen Edith on Somerton. Recorded on a Zoom H6

"Mechanical"

Room 424 labeled "Mechanical" in the Frederick Douglass Building at the University of Rochester River Campus. Something sounds behind 424's locked doors and remains sounding 24/7.

Music School Studio Room

I recorded the ambience of a room in a studio at the Eastman School of Music, but within this ambience, if I might describe every action as they occur, I walked from outside the studio to the door, unlocked it with a key, removed the key, opened the door, walked in, shut the door, and then waited....

Reading Emily Dickinson

An internal reading of Emily Dickinson's "A Thought went up my mind today" and "Drama's Vitallest Expression is the Common Day." The internal experience of reading poetry can be rife with imagined sound even as the external environment of the act of reading is entirely silent. Inspired by Daniela...

Ring Road

A recording of Italian radio, wind, and traffic designed to demonstrate the "meaningless" cacophony that can be present in the "nothing" of absent listening. Inspired by Daniela Cascella's descriptions of listening to radio while sitting in traffic on the ring road outside of Rome, this recording...

Dog Greeting Owner

6:00 PM. I arrive at my apartment. My dog already knows I am there; he can hear my footsteps in the stairwell. He loses control of his emotions. All he can provide is a pathetic whine. He is thrilled to see me. His tags ring like a peal of bells announcing a royal return. He was so lonely. I, too,...

Early Morning Birdsong

The birds are back early this year. They announce the arrival of spring. Punxsutawney Phil told us six more weeks of winter. We got about two. The birds sing of coming warmth. It is little comfort. I welcome milder weather, but it will only be mild for so long. Perhaps summer will come early, too....

Lying on the Carpet

Instead of walking or standing on a carpeted floor, a body lies down on the low-pile, flat surface.

Stool of Books

Instead of flipping through the pages of an open book and reading the text, I stack these solid slabs on top of one another and stand atop them to reach a tall shelf.

Class Transition

Room 101 in Old Sibley Library at the Eastman School of Music. A music history class is ending while an Alexander Technique class is getting ready to begin. Fragments of conversation fade in and out while a live recording of Franz Schubert's Octet plays in the background.

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The Shape of Sound: Sonic Responses to Daniela Cascella's En Abime

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