Trace Reverb Trace w/Lili Maya

Trace Reverb Trace is an installation with sound, realized on Governors Island, NYC during the 2024 Indeterminacy Festival. The project was created during our artist residency on the island and assisted by 4 emerging and 9 apprentice artists.

Sited in an abandoned home at 17 Nolan Park, and in acknowledgement of the technological history and largely built nature of Governors Island, Trace Reverb Trace envisions a self-sustaining artificial ecology independently reclaiming this built environment when the people have gone.

The sound was based on a 10 note scale (A Dekany derived from the research of Erv Wilson) whose root tone was the resonant frequency of the rooms where each array was installed. Each of the 42 speakers functioned independently and “chose” a pitch from the scale, an amplitude level, and duration based on environmental factors.

Artists Jonah Bowrie and Ben Munoz, who were Emerging artists in this year’s festival and assisted us on our project, have an ongoing online work at https://fuit.es. Ben and Jonah incorporated content from Trace Reverb Trace into fuit.es. The page is here: https://fuit.es/trace-retrace and continues to grow and change in digital space.

Our emerging and apprentice artists:
Derek Holland, Noelle Salaun, Jane Grabowski, Jonah Bowrie, Ben Munoz, Sam Douma, Brayden Carr, Daniela Chapparo, Elliot Russell, Jude Markey-Smith, Trey Scantlen, Ben Zucker, and Thelonius Garcia.

This project was made possible by the generous support of the New York Arts Program (Emilie Clark, Director), and Stanzi Vaubel, Artistic Director and Founder of the Indeterminacy Festival.

Images: Bjorn Bolinder
@findthelightphotography IG
findthelightphotography.com