Patrick Quinn [Sonifying the Sun: The Mass Emergence of Brood XIII and XIX Periodical Cicadas, Volume 2]
Release date: June 01, 2025
Catalog no. zappak-026
Bandcamp Page: Sonifying the Sun: The Mass Emergence of Brood XIII and XIX Periodical Cicadas, Volume 2 | Patrick Quinn | zappak
July 2022 (Nearly Two Years Prior to Emergence)
July 2024 (No More Cicadas)
Excerpt: https://soundcloud.com/zappak/zappak-026
Mixed and mastered by Patrick Quinn
[Sonifying the Sun Volume 1] (Topos Press / 2024) topospress.bandcamp.com/album/patrick-quinn-sonifying-the-sun-the-mass-emergence-of-brood-xiii-and-xix-periodical-cicadas-volume-1-cat013
For a week in May 2024, along with Calling All Ears Collective (CAEC), I recorded and did deep listening sessions of periodical cicadas and the sounds of the Anthropocene around them throughout the state of Illinois—the state I grew up in.
Periodical cicadas are amazing creatures that spend nearly their entire lives underground as immature insects; they come up for a few weeks once every either 13 or 17 years to molt into adults, bask in the sun, mate, lay eggs, and then die. In May and June 2024, trillions of cicadas belonging to Brood XIII (17-year cicada) and Brood XIX (13-year cicada) emerged from their underground burrows across the Midwest and South—a convergent phenomenon that occurs once every 221 years. In Illinois, Brood XIII (sometimes referred to as the Northern Illinois Brood) covered the northern part of the state and Brood XIX (also known as The Great Southern Brood) covered the southern half of the state. However, there was a thin area in central and eastern Illinois where the two groups of cicadas overlapped and if you listen close enough you can hear them chorusing together on some of the recordings included on Sonifying the Sun.
For this project, I used a variety of microphones and listening devices—an omnidirectional pair, geophones, hydrophones, contact microphones, and electromagnetic receivers—in an effort to listen to the cicadas and their surroundings in different ways. Some of the cicadas fell into the streams, lakes, and rivers at a number of our recording locations due to the crowdedness of the trees, their preferred habitat. It was fascinating to record and interact with them in the water. At one point, cicadas desperate to get back on land, swam to my hydrophone, then proceeded to climb up the microphone cable and eventually onto my shoulders before drifting back into the trees.
Periodical cicadas are gone from the surface for the time being, but not forgotten sonically and otherwise.
Patrick Quinn is a US-based artist, researcher, and educator focused on sound, video, conceptual writing, and walking. This is the second in a series of his works focusing on the activities of periodical cicadas (the first was released on cassette by Topos Press in 2024).
Following the first work, this work also contains recordings focusing on the activities of different periodical cicadas of the 13 years and the 17 years, held in Illinois in May 2024. Since this work was made by mixing recordings made with various microphones and methods, or from different perspectives and angles, it is not like a pure archival record, and there are many seamless and cut-up scene transitions. In addition to the sounds of cicadas, various static and dynamic sound elements are combined to create a narrative acoustic soundscape work consisting of three main parts.
Patrick Quinnはアメリカを拠点に活動するアーティスト、研究者、教育者で、サウンドやビデオ、コンセプチュアル・ライティング、ウォーキングを専門としている。本作は彼が周期ゼミの活動に着目したシリーズの2作目である(1作目は2024年にTopos Pressよりカセットで発表)。
1作目に引き続き、本作も2024年の5月にイリノイ州でおこなわれた13年ゼミと17年ゼミの異なる周期ゼミの活動に着目した録音を収録したもの。さまざまなマイクや手法、または異なる視点や角度によっておこなわれた録音を混ぜ合わせて作られたため、純粋なアーカイブ記録のようにはなっておらず、シームレスであったりカットアップ的であったりする場面の転換なども多く含まれている。また、鳴き声のほかにも静的/動的なさまざまな音の要素が組み合わされ、主に3つのパートからなるナラティブな音響的サウンドスケープ作品に仕上がっている。
Patrick Quinn is an artist/researcher/educator focused on sound, video, conceptual writing, and walking. He holds a PhD from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is currently based in Queens, New York. His work has been published by Somnimage, Topos Press, Sono Space, Impulsive Habitat, Presque Tout, Neuma, Burial Recordings, Hysterically Real, Gauss PDF, among others, and he has an upcoming release scheduled for June on Zappak. He has had performances and/or participated in screenings, listenings, and exhibitions at Miami Art Basel, EMPAC, Wave Farm, House of Electronic Arts Basel, Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Art Center, Unsmoke Systems Artspace, Live Performers Meeting (Cape Town), The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, among many others. For the last six years he also produced a radio show for Wave Farm/WGXC-90.7 FM called “Algorithm as Ritual.”
In addition to being an educator at multiple City University of New York (CUNY) colleges, Quinn has been a part of a number of activist and community projects over the last decade. In 2019, he walked across Illinois (over 200 miles in one week) in an effort to increase awareness of homelessness and supportive housing; for this project, he was awarded Housing Forward’s Community Awareness Award for 2019. From 2022 to 2024, he ran Fountain House’s Green Door Studio—a music studio and creative incubator for adults living with serious mental illness. And since 2022, Quinn has worked with MediaMKRS—a DEI workforce development initiative for young New Yorkers interested in pursuing careers in the media industry. Through this work, he has helped place over 200 CUNY students in over 400 internships in the media industry.
patrickjquinn.bandcamp.com
