Greg Pond in Chattanooga

Artist Greg Pond is presenting a site-specific sound and sculpture installation in Chattanooga this week. It's a great opportunity to meet this Tennessee-based artist and experience his work in a unique environment in our city. Read about this work below and learn more about the artist here: http://gregpond.net/.

Medium Boundary

a sound and sculpture installation by Greg Pond

The history of a city is recorded in its buildings. Within those buildings, the materials and methods of construction retain a physical and sonic record of how former occupation and activity were experienced and understood. As they currently stand, these buildings retain the potential for new experience of their spaces in the dormant hum of vacancy. This installation extracts simple and subtle aspects of the architecture and environment to create a new experience of the place that is informed by its material and cultural presence and history. 

The installation records sound and obtains other environmental information from the structure of the building and its surroundings. From this information different characteristics of the building are analyzed and selected. Harmonic and other compositional structures are built and amplified in response through software. All of this input is translated and presented in the form of sound, transmitted through a variety of both conventional and unconventional devices. The sound is projected through the empty warehouse to generate a sculptural/spatial experience that affects the understanding of the space and the sound itself. The physical properties of the sound waves become a sculptural medium that is shaped by the architecture and its surroundings.   

This work will amplify and react to the underlying processes and physical conditions of the architecture. Computer algorithms are responsive to the sounds over time and alter the composition. Projection of these sounds into the space, through speakers and transducers attached to structure and other materials, is informed by the way sound waves behave as they move through it; the acoustic properties of the material that make up the structure; how sound reflects off of its surfaces and the interaction of sound waves with each other. Acoustic, haptic and environmental sensors will collect data to be reinterpreted in the context of the site’s historical, social and environmental conditions. The intent is to suggest what is possible under a new set of relations and conditions, altering our understanding of place through recognition of existing physical properties that are not at the fore of perception or codified in the language or history that define it.

Walter Benjamin presented the idea that we understand materials and their application through our knowledge of their origins and methods of production. Steel is born of a liquid. The material nature of an object conveys a history that informs the nature of a thing beyond its function that affects our understanding our of surroundings. Exploration of any space or structure is informed by this notion. The interaction with and understanding of materials that comprise our environment are thus important to our sense of place. This project amplifies this through sound. 

Open hours
Monday, September 23, 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Tuesday, September 24, 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Wednesday, September 25, 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Thursday, September 26, 10:00 AM - 1:00, 2:00 - 4:00 PM
Friday, September 27, 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM

Location 1200 E Main St. Chattanooga, TN 37408 

Directions 

Turn south on to Gulf Street from Main Street. There is a small parking lot immediately on the left. The entrance is on Gulf Street, through the gate at the south side of the parking lot. A sign on the brick wall will indicate the entrance. 

Google Maps link to the location: http://goo.gl/maps/IWJNK