NYAB Event - Stephen Vitiello Exhibition

Stephen Vitiello Exhibition

American Contemporary

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American Contemporary announces a two - part installation by renowned sound artist Stephen Vitiello. The exhibition pairs together a major early work, Frogs in Feedback (2002) , and a ne w sculptural sound installation Gain and Lift ( 2014 ).

Frogs in Feedback is a kinetic sound sculpture involving a suspended, working microphone circling a speaker mounted on the floor. The resulting interaction produces a melancholic and morphing poem of feedback tempered by an analog ring modulator. Visually, the piece references Steve Reich’s iconic composition Pendulum Music. Where Reich’s piece involves multiple speakers and microphones, and is intended for performance, Vitiello’s work is more localized and organic. Despite the fact no frog s were used in this piece and it often disappears into complete abstraction, the sculpture has a mortal presence in the space.

The second work revisit s Vitiello’s suspended speaker works, which process low frequencies of sound to create three - dimensional scores . The freed speakers are suspended by wires, which hold them gently in the air allowing them to move . The installation utilizes four channels, sixteen 6.25” speakers and the flutter of hummingbirds recorded at Mountain Lake Biological Station, Pembroke in the Appalachian mountains. The playback feature s only the lowest frequencies, causing movement to the surfaces of the s peakers while remaining below the threshold of human hearing. The score is created through a process of transformation, rather than layering the material onto chromatic scale.

The two works function as almost perfect opposites. One creates something wild and organic from seemingly nothing, and the other condenses the organic to a beautiful, minimal four-dimensional installation. In Vitiello’s work sound lives a complete existence. It is not about isolated moments, the honking of a horn, a piece of music, but instead a visceral reality in actual space and time . In these works form and sound endure harmoniously and in conflict like two magnets; four alternate poles attracting and repelling to allow a sonic and physical flow of change, resistance and connection.