#alvin lucier

[unaturalhistory]

Alvin Lucier 1931 - 2021

[thegreatlearning]

[a-bottleofale]

Work Statement

The Boxes We Inhabit explores the concept of space through visuals and audio in the fashion of Alvin Lucier's sound artwork I am sitting in a room (1969). In it, I record myself at the center of the room speaking into a microphone, then I take that recording and project it into a black foam board box—another room so to speak. I continue this process of re-recording and projecting until the audio becomes distorted. I also alter the video so that it loses quality with each iteration by scaling the files down then enlarging them within a higher quality sequence. The exposure is gradually increased to the point that the image is reduced to pixels, digital rooms that contain visual information. The idea is to draw attention to the formal elements that make up a room, namely the physical space and its acoustics, to question the boxy spaces we inhabit as humans.

Images

[ozkar-krapo]

V/A

"Extended Voices"

(LP. Odyssey. 1967) [US]

[hettymcsweaty]

There's something about being depressed and locked in your dark bedroom while it's cold outside and listening to Alvin Lucier while scrolling through tumblr that's healing.

[werkboileddown]

[lunescentsounds]

You ever go back and listen to your own music? I've listened to this piece of mine about four times in the last week. I completely (digitally) ripped off Alvin Lucier's "I Am Sitting In A Room" to get the effect I wanted, as the mantra "Om Namah Shivaya" is repeated. Each repetition finds more reverberation applied to the previous mantra, until it loses all form, and then slowly reemerges. A devotional piece, to be sure.

[musicmakesyousmart]

Alvin Lucier - Works for the Ever Present Orchestra Vol. II

Black Truffle

2023