Timothy Nohe

Candles for Faust is a sound and video installation artwork...

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:02:05 -0400

Candles for Faust is a sound and video installation artwork produced for a silent storefront installation at the in/flux gallery, 307 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore. The work will be on view from November 5 – 19, 2011.

Candles for Faust portrays candles, burning at both ends, that eventually extinguish themselves and fall from sight. Stereo recordings were produced of the drumming sound of dripping wax falling on printmaking paper. I imagined the candles as “musical instruments” producing unique and chaotic drum patterns. As the candles attempted to reach equilibrium, teetering back and forth, they tattooed a pattern of wax scatter on the paper below. The resulting wax splashed detritus exists on the surface of the prints as a record of time and residue of the beating wax drummer, long extinguished.

The video presented here is a condensed version of one candle seeking equilibrium. The typical lifespan of the candles ranged from 9 and 11 minutes. The work may also be presented accompanied by sound and prints.

Ashes, Ashes was composed as an elegiac concert work for the...

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 11:11:42 -0400

Ashes, Ashes was composed as an elegiac concert work for the 10th anniversary of the September 11th tragedy. The work debuted September 11, 2011 at Christ Lutheran Church Inner Harbor, Baltimore. This is the final movement of the 18 minute work; the full work is available on DVD from the artist.

Lyrics and Music by Timothy Nohe. Improvisations by the musicians. Diane Schaming, mezzo soprano; Lisa Cella, winds and water; Andy Hayleck, bowed percussion; Timothy Nohe, laptop synthesis and sequences, waterphone, water and ash. © Timothy Nohe 2011

Concert organized by Hollis Thoms for the National Capital Area Chapter of the Fulbright Alumni Association.

Final movement lyrics:

The day is done, the day is past

The conspiracy remains,

at a distance,

menacing us, controlling us, invading us,

Hands against us, without and within,

and we do strike out

directing our wrath

but no consolation is found as

fire eats fire

This bone is bitter

in our mouths

and our cries for

mother, father

sister, and brother

rise into clear blue sky

Clear sky

Lift

your voice

to the clear

clear blue sky

to the clear blue sky

to the clear

People as Verbs, 2011. Climbing the ladder of anti-success....

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:29:36 -0400

People as Verbs, 2011. Climbing the ladder of anti-success. Music and HD video by Timothy Nohe, Gina Braden, actor. Scored for business machines, waterphone, synthesis. This work will be projected at the in/flux gallery, 307 West Baltimore Street, November 5 - 19, 2011.

This work was originally created for a dance collaboration with choreographer Reneé Brozic Barger. This version is meant for installation and screenings.

Dedicated to all of those who have been “right-sized,” are searching for work, or are bent over by the promises of the middle class dream.

I continue to be involved with Locus Sonus, a live audio...

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:38:12 -0400

I continue to be involved with Locus Sonus, a live audio streaming consortium based in France. I stream from my UMBC office, contributing the Baltimore node. A “sound map” points to the streams, distributed from around the world. Currently held over is the exhibition “City Sonic” in Mons: http://www.digitalmcd.com/2011/08/22/festival-international-des-arts-sonores-city-sonic-du-27-aout-au-11-septembre-a-mons/

City Sonic is a course of sound installations which spreads in six locations in the downtown area of Mons (BAM, Maison Madness, Machine with Water, Salle Saint-Georges, Médiathèque and site of the old Slaughter-houses). Installation and creations of international artists such as Hans Peter Kuhn (Al), David Renggli (CH), Jim Shaw (the USA), Saâdane Afif (Fr), Yvat Collective (Ro)… and French nationals such as François Martig, Locus Sonus, Gauthier Keyaerts.

»

Coming at the end of September, a new Locus Sonus installation in Brussels:

Festival Todaysart - MyCityLab, International Festival Beyond Art in Gare du Midi, Brussels, Belgium

September 28 - October 2, 2011

MyCityLab : It is a user-driven innovation network which brings together artists, technologists, philosophers and citizens to investigate on how particularly social, locative and mobile network infrastructure and mobile devices can contribute to new ways of travelling through the city, dealing with locations and people.

http://www.cimatics.com/

http://todaysart.be/

4 PM Thursday, April 28Join me for an encore performance of...

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 07:25:08 -0400

4 PM Thursday, April 28
Join me for an encore performance of Creative Acts: Site Specific Dance & Music Performances in Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park, UMBC. An artist talk-back will immediately follow along with light refreshments. Admission: free. I have organized the music for 30 Oaks, which was choreographed by Meghan Flanigan and features John Dieker and Rose Hammer Burt, reeds, and Will Redman, percussion. Will performs on marching band percussion and instruments that I have created from UMBC recycled rubbish.

Free parking is available for visitors in the Stadium Lot across the street from the park. See parking map below or attached. Follow this link for directions to UMBC. Rain dates: same time, one week later.

Creative Acts in Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park is supported in part by the TKF Foundation.

People Who Became Verbs (World Premiere) will be presented at...

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 17:57:13 -0400

People Who Became Verbs (World Premiere) will be presented at the Theater Project, Baltimore, June 10th and 11th at 8pm. It’s the most recent collaboration between Renée Brozic Barger and I. The traumatic financial collapse has inspired this dance, but the work also promises greater connection, contribution, and partnerships among people. I will produce large scale video projections and a sound score sequenced from samples of business machines, office furnishings, and traditional musical instruments.

We are collaborating with Nicole A. Martinell’s Deep Vision Dance Company, for this night of multimedia dance works.

http://www.theatreproject.org/

Kickstarter - The Failure Support Group at 2011 The Transmodern Festival

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 18:04:44 -0500

Kickstarter - The Failure Support Group at 2011 The Transmodern Festival:

Everyone loves a failure, right? What’s not to love, and, learn from?

The Crystal Egg Directed by Colette SearlsIRC Fellows mentored...

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:47:00 -0500

The Crystal Egg

Directed by Colette Searls
IRC Fellows mentored by Timothy Nohe
Sound Score by Timothy Nohe

Presented December 2-5 & 10-13 at the UMBC Theater

Based on the story by sci-fi pioneer H.G. Wells, this new adaptation mixed humanoid puppets with animated creatures in an extraordinary tale of otherworldly encounters.

The Crystal Egg featured curio shop owner Mr. Cave, a lonely old man whose life is forever changed when one of his curiosities — a small crystal egg — reveals itself as the home of creatures from another world.

Using innovative new animation tools, The Crystal Egg featured creatures created by UMBC’s Imaging Research Center Fellows who came to life and engaged with puppets in real time. Set to an original score by sound artist Timothy Nohe, The Crystal Egg offered a unique experience in visual and aural storytelling.

“Thirty Oaks,” is a site-specific work that...

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 20:31:24 -0500

“Thirty Oaks,” is a site-specific work that celebrates the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park with dance, improvised music and costumes. The project joined choreographer Meghan Flanigan, sound artist Timothy Nohe, and visual artist Antoinette Suiter in a multidisciplinary collaboration involving UMBC dance students and Baltimore musicians Rose Hammer Burt, Tiffany DeFoe and Will Redman.

The work sets a dialogue between the human instinct to preserve and enjoy nature while also transforming and polluting it. The audience was invited to inhabit the park with the performers, enjoying the setting as well as the performance. The work was performed October 21, 2010 and will be presented again in April of 2011.

Liquid Measure

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 19:09:22 -0500

Liquid Measure:

This is another work of choreography by Carol Hess. This time I transformed some Bach in Abelton Live (sorry JS). A duet for two women who use their bodies as tools of measurement, investigating ancient methods of measuring. Conceived for originally for AREA 405, a non-traditional performance space. Performed by Becky Dyson and Franki Trout. Performed at AREA 405 in Baltimore (2009), UMBC Theater (2010), Load of Fun Theater in Baltimore (2010), and the Megapolis Festival, at the 2640 Space in Baltimore (2010).

Partial Recall

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 18:37:56 -0500

Partial Recall:

Partial Recall is an experimental tap solo conceived by choreographer Carol Hess for an “in the round” performance at the 2640 Space in Baltimore. The dance features rhythmic relationships unconventional to the tap idiom, by intertwining elements such as free meter, acceleration and deceleration, with phrases of steady beats, varying in time signatures from 3/4 to 4/4 to 5/4. Designed and performed by Carol Hess to live improvisation structures by sound artist Timothy Nohe and percussionist Shelly Purdy. Presented as part of the Megapolis Audio Festival, Sunday May 16, 2010.

One Week Receipt featured recordings of consumers reading back...

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:01:47 -0500

One Week Receipt featured recordings of consumers reading back their weekly shopping purchases directly from their cash register receipts. Using my social media network to capture consumer choices, I recorded the weekly grocery shopping receipts of participants from Hawaii to New York City, and installed the audio in a shopping cart. Interactors pushed two red buttons to hear the participants. The resulting audio sampling produced an absurd poem of consumption.

Thanks to Lauren Christine Alford, Washington, DC; Diana Jeon, Honolulu, Hawaii; Justin Grotelueschen, New York City; Nicole Shiflet, Baltimore.

I’ve uploaded video documentation of Incised Lines, my...

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:01:21 -0500

I’ve uploaded video documentation of Incised Lines, my visual score for Percy Grainger’s Electric Eye Tone Tool.

Incised Lines is a work of sound art, produced as a visual score for an optical synthesizer created by composer Percy Grainger and Burnett Cross between 1954 - 61, and recreated by composer Dr. Warren Burt.

I produced graphite rubbings directly from the chisel-cut sandstone foundation of a colonial period fort designed by Francis Greenway at Dawes Point, Sydney Harbour.

The “electric eyes” of the instrument read the differences between marked and unmarked areas in the rubbings, sensing the mallet and chisel blows of long dead masons, sounding their labor. Variations in the graphite rubbings of the score are translated to shifts in pitches, stereo placement and volume.

I’m continuing my work with Locus Sonus, the live...

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:34:00 -0500

I’m continuing my work with Locus Sonus, the live streaming audio project that draws sound from around the globe. The images here document a new installation of the audio streams in Paris. I joined Locus Sonus with a stream from Wollongong, Australia in 2007. I began a new feed in Baltimore in 2009.

In this realization the work is guided through an iPad, as interactors select live streams from Europe, North America, South America and Asia each played back via an overhead parabolic speakers.

The project partners with the Art Schools of Aix en Provence (ESAA) and Nice (ENSA Villa Arson) in the south of France and other international collaborators.

Locus Sonus Lab organizers include: Julien Clauss, Alejandro Duque, Scott Fitzgerald, Jérôme Joy, Anne Roquigny, and Peter Sinclair.

-Photos by Anne Roquigny

Everything Must Go is coming up at the Cade Art Gallery, Anne...

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 11:37:06 -0400

Everything Must Go is coming up at the Cade Art Gallery, Anne Arundel Community College, Maryland. I’m creating a shopping cart that will playback one week of shopping from participants sampled around the globe. You’ll hear what goes into their cart, from farm stands to big box retailers. Listen to Nicole’s docket coming in from a Baltimore city garden, and a Whole Foods market.

Everything Must Go - Twenty artist-modified shopping carts, co-curated by Chris Mona and Shannon Young.

Exhibition: November 8 – December 8, 2010. Artists’ Talk: Thursday, November 11, 12:30 pm. Reception: Thursday, November 11, 6 – 8 pm.

Project Mah Jongg is still going strong at the Museum of Jewish...

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:51:00 -0400

Gallery Entry

Installation View

A "Muji" player, spinning my mixes

Game play, in the the installation

Project Mah Jongg is still going strong at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place in Lower Manhattan, New York City. I did the sound design for the exhibition, combining field recordings and period music pieces. The exhibition and catalog, designed by Abbott Miller of Pentagram, features artwork by Christoph Niemann, Isaac Mizrahi, Maira Kalman, and Bruce McCall and was curated by Melissa Martens. We’ve had great press in the New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal. The show will travel, so look for updates here - it could be coming to your town.

On view in NYC through January 2, 2011.

What’s it all about?
Since the 1920s, the game of mah jongg has ignited the Jewish-American imagination in living rooms and gathering spots around the country. Introduced to American audiences by Joseph P. Babcock who began importing sets en masse around 1922, the game delighted players with its beautifully adorned tiles, associations with other lands, and mysterious rules. Companies such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Milton Bradley, and Parker Brothers further popularized the game by selling affordable sets across America, setting a craze in motion.

Yet even at the height of the first fad for mah jongg, commentators debated the game’s image as a “vice”—a gambling game, a time waster, and a potential vehicle for rebellious flapper behavior. Introduced to America during a peak in immigration restrictions, the game’s foreign associations stirred both consumer intrigue and stereotypes in the press.

Touch Glass

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:49:33 -0500

Touch Glass - podcast of the audio
Anarchy in the Kitchen, Umami Food and Art Festival
March 5, 2010

Timothy Nohe and Shannon Young investigate the aural qualities of wine glasses, guttering candle flames, water, and daily gestures in Touch Glass, a new sound-performance piece created for “Anarchy in the Kitchen.” Touch Glass and other “Anarchy” performances will be streaming live from the Umami Website or at viewing parties at Eyebeam (NYC), Squeaky Wheel (Buffalo), The NonStop Institute (Yellow Springs, OH), and The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture at The University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Incised Lines

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:48:00 -0400

Incised Lines is a “visual score” for Percy Grainger’s “Electric Eye Tone Tool.” I produced graphite rubbings directly from chisel-cut sandstone in The Rocks district of Sydney. The “electric eyes” of the instrument read the differences between marked and unmarked areas in the rubbings, sensing the mallet and chisel blows of long dead masons, sounding their labor. Variations in the graphite rubbings of the score are translated to shifts in pitches, stereo placement and volume. Listen to an MP3 of the sound.

I have produced two scores for the “Electric Eye Tone Tool”, as the instrument has been recreated and programmed by the composer Warren Burt. Incised Lines: Dawes Point will debut in a concert at the Illawarra Institute of Technology, 4 June 2007 at 7:00 PM. Dawes Point is evoked in the programming, with gradually shifting tones that call to mind the tide and wind.

Convict stonemasons shaped sandstone into architectural elements that are varied in surface effects, and which continue to serve as direct transcriptions of hard physical labor and artistry. The basic tools for shaping stone have remained nearly unchanged for centuries: mallet, chisels, and straight edge. With these tools stonemasons interpreted the plans (or scores) of Penal Colony period architects, such as the transported forger Francis Greenway. Many fine examples of the masons’ handiwork exist in The Rocks district, and I selected colonial period sites at Dawes Point and the Argyle Cut to poduce rubbings.

Only a handful of Francis Greenway’s structures survive to this day, and for Incised Lines: Dawes Point, I produced a rubbing from a Greenway designed gun battery that was rediscovered near one of the footings of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Argyle Cut is a deep rock passage, providing a direct connection between Millers Point and The Rocks. The daunting rock ridge was first cut in 1843 with convict workers employing hand tools. After their effort ground to a halt, the excavation was finally completed in 1867/1868 with explosives.

I first imagined producing this sort of score when visiting Port Arthur, Tasmania, where I observed that convict produced buildings were covered in a complex relief of chisel marks that resembled percussion music.

Photos by Janet Swaim and Mr. Timothy. All gratitude to Warren Burt.

Kingsford Smith International Airport

Wed, 16 May 2007 22:33:37 -0400

My work at Botany Bay has included numerous visits to Sydney Airport, formally known as Kingsford Smith International Airport, and to many Sydneysiders as Mascot. The airport is the busiest in Australia, handling in excess of 30 million passengers in 2006. Jutting into Botany Bay are two runways, easily visible from satellite images, which have transformed the hydrology of the bay.

In this image a 747 taxis along runway 34L, visually merging with the towering cranes of Port Botany. A stone groin protects the runway margin from erosion by the forces of the bay, but also redirects the wave energy of the system, eroding sand from some shores and building deposits on others. The effects are evident on Towra Point’s shoreline and in the remaining underwater grass communities of the bay. The mudflats, seagrass beds and mangroves of Botany Bay are the nurseries of a complex web of life. Sport fisheries are wholly reliant on this habitat; commercial fishing in the bay has been closed for years. Some areas of the bay, such as the Penrhyn Estuary, are so polluted that recreational swimming and fishing are strictly prohibited.

An airport “zone of exclusion” is marked by a line of yellow buoys, warning away boating traffic from the secure zone of the jutting 34L and 34R runways.

Two major rivers enter Botany Bay: Georges River in the southwest and Cooks River in the northwest. The Cooks River, has been channeled to make an artificial exit into the bay, about 1.5 km to the south of the original outflow. An eyewitness recalled that the new mouth for the river was formed by bulldozers from the Commonwealth Public Works Department in August of 1950.

The old control terminal marks one of the banks of the turned river, and a small park and beach near the structure provides an ideal location for plane spotters. On many afternoons I have joined a clutch of men (women don’t seem attracted to this pursuit) at the perimeter fence to runway 34L.

Here, ardent pursuers of aviation excitement endure blast of J4 exhausts to snap digital photos or listen in on portable RF scanners. I am similarly equipped, perched at the fence with my DAT recorder, a home-brew stereo microphone, a parabloic reflector, RF scanner, and digital cam. In this milieu, I do not stand-out, possibly for the first time, as I research the bay.

Scanner set-up, with a crib sheet of radio frequencies common to the airport.

The observer’s beach is strewn with the flotsam of the bay. Common objects are plastic based consumables, such as bottles and bags, Styrofoam packing materials, and on… but on some days I’ve seen the shore strewn with dozens of rose buds, the carcases of two snowy white chickens (with and without heads), children’s wading pools, and countless beach thongs.

An errant baby bottle, energy drink, takeaway container and lime green soft drink (unconsumed).

A flotsam assemblage. This artwork was created in the scrub of the dune margin, from cast away plastic toys, stuffed animals and a coconut. Artist, unknown.

Guriwal

Wed, 09 May 2007 20:02:17 -0400

Guriwal is the Aboriginal name for the area known as La Perouse, and is situated on the North Head of Gamay/Botany Bay. I’ve been recording at the site for some weeks now, walking places that range from the Aboriginal community established before and maintained throughout European contact at Yarra Bay, to golf courses, military fortifications at Bare Island Fort and the Banks Battery, industrial complexes, a shipwreck, an isolation hospital and cemeteries encompassed by the National Park.

Tanker and sand trap at the New South Wales Golf Club.

The wreck of the “Minmi”, a collier lost at Cape Banks in 1937.

Banks Battery gun emplacement, filled in with Gothic style architectural elements. Two gun emplacements remain at the site high in the dunes, with a network of air shafts, magazines, and range-finding facilities.

Graffiti, Banks Battery site.

Cemetery at Little Bay, known also as the Coast Hospital Cemetery. Over 2000 people were interred here, though few markers remain. The graves of Chinese immigrants were marked with a wooden peg, and all were removed in the 1980s in a site “clean up.” Only a single example of a peg marker now remains at the site.

IDA MAY HORN
AGED 5 YEARS & 6 MONTHS
“Whiter than snow”

A red bellied black snake was sunning itself when I photographed it at the entrance to the Coast Hospital Cemetery. This venomous snake is still found throughout the parkland at Botany Bay. John Cann, of the famous Cann Family, presenters of a live snake and reptile show at La Perouse since the 1920s, advises that all bush walkers should carry a pressure bandage in the event of snake bite. If I was unlucky that day, I would have to improvise with a t-shirt and hope that my cell phone could find a signal.