sonic transmission archive
NEWBURGH COMMUNITY LAND BANK
ARTIST IN VACANCY
caroline partamian
ethan primason
Carriage House @193 First Street
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24 hr Open Studio & Show:
12pm September 29– 12pm September 30, 2018
24 hour open studio + live show
the Carriage House
@193 First Street
Newburgh, New York
12pm til 12pm
Saturday 9/29 - Sunday 9/30, 2018
tune in to live broadcast at wavefarm.org
Partamian and Primason will transform and repurpose the vacant carriage house of 193 First Street in Newburgh, NY, as a site to debut the Sonic Transmission Archive with a continuous 24 hour sonic event showcasing sounds by local & regional musicians and artists, as well as collecting and broadcasting contributions to the Archive. The entire 24 hour showcase will be broadcast by WGXC throughout the Hudson Valley. Artists joining us in celebrating sound as agency include Justin Frye (PC Worship), fellow AIV artist Audra Wolowiec, Katie Down, Noah-Kardos Fein (Yvette), members of Weeping Icon, Rene Kladzyk (Ziemba), Devin Brahja Waldman with Eline Marx, Sarah Kinlaw, Adam Tinkle, Ed Bear, Marshall LaCount, Mark Treka, and many more. Full schedule to be posted soon.
sonic transmission archive
about
The Sonic Transmission Archive (STA) is a mobile and place-based audio project by Ethan Primason & Caroline Partamian aimed to convey a collective human voice while simultaneously investigating the historic human impulse to transmit into the unknown. The project will launch a digital archiving and transmission platform which will collect, randomize, and transmit sonic contributions in perpetuity.
STA is a large-scale interactive sonic collaboration that interfaces directly with the individuals from communities visited by the artists, as well as virtually engaging with participants from around the world. By prompting and collecting sounds, experiences, and ideas in a open and unbiased structure, the hope is to provide a platform which illuminates the agency and power of voice as the representative force of our larger collective community. The ultimate goal for STA is to transmit this growing sonic time capsule into interstellar space as a modernized, reflexive, and democratized representation of humanity, shaped and formed directly by the voices within.
Ethan Primason & Caroline Partamian are both deeply inspired by the intention, development, and realization of the Voyager Golden Record, launched by NASA in 1977 as a multidimensional transmissive archive designed to communicate directly with the cosmos. However, as individuals living and working in the Twenty-First century, they recognize the inherent flaw regarding the design of a fixed representation of human history conceived by a small and homogenous group of scientists and academics.
As Sound Artists with backgrounds in Anthropology and Radio, they are fascinated by the link between history and the potential of extraterrestrial, spiritual, and sonic communication. They see Transmission both as a physical and metaphoric representation of a participatory and accessible unconscious, a platform that grants one their own space to communicate honestly and freely into the unknown.
The Artist-in-Vacancy (AIV) residency in Newburgh, NY, is the first iteration of this project: A research phase used to collect and create sounds, investigate, reflect and generate approaches to transmission, community, legacy and contact. As part of the residency, they will transform and repurpose a vacant property in Newburgh as the inaugural home base for the Sonic Transmission Archive. While in residence, they will be record the sounds of Newburgh, design and experiment with electronics, transmitters, synthesizers, and host workshops and performances that explore emotional, spiritual, and communal connection through sound.
Download the press release here.
OPEN CALL
CONTRIBUTE TO SONIC TRANSMISSION ARCHIVE
We hope that you will participate in the development and cultivation of the Sonic Transmission Archive. Click the link above for more info on how to participate!
caroline partamian & ethan primason
Caroline Partamian is a musician, visual artist, and curator influenced by her training in dance. She works specifically with the concept of abreaction – the extraction of dormant memory stored within a muscle, resurfaced through physical movement, of which an individual was previously unaware; these memories span the spectrum and can take many forms – traumatic, erotic, or comforting. By focusing on the process rather than anticipated result, her work encourages what can be revealed when one becomes conscious of their kinetic movement in the process of creation.
Ethan Primason is a sound artist, recording engineer, radio producer, and musician. His works and practices are heavily collaborative and guided by anthropological and ritualized approaches towards sound, transmission, improvisation, healing, and storytelling. Recent projects have been informed by deep listening, ecomusicology, sonic ethnography and sound collage.