Don't Try This at Home (2007)
Tamara Albaitis
Window (detail), 2007
108 raw speakers, audio wire, 8-minute soundtrack, window & its treatments
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Tamara Albaitis is the first person in the U.S. to graduate with a Master's Degree in Sound Art. Her pieces are equally aural and sculptural. She uses speaker wire not only as functional material between her constructed soundscapes and the speakers that transmit them to our ears, but also as lines on the canvas of the room. Her interest in daily rituals, routines, and everyday objects emphasize temporal progression; she uses sounds that evoke universal, common experiences. In this particular exhibition, Albaitis creates humorous masses of speaker wire that cough and hack as if someone were being suffocated by the sheer density of kinked and jumbled black lines. She also depicts a common household corner where the sounds of inside and outside commingle in a dance of internal mumbled dialogue and the reality of wailing sirens screaming through city streets, setting the stage for the perceived safety and comfort of home.
Don't Try This at Home
September 17 - October 13, 2007
Intersection for the Arts
San Francisco, CA
Photo credit: Scott Chernis