Stereo audio –


This work is composed from materials captured on the factory floor of one of the largest factories producing utilities in the US, Nela Park, Cleavland, Ohio – GE’s lightbulb factory. The humble lightbulb is ubiquitous, driving our modern culture and providing us with a sense of controlling time and the working day. But few think about the origins of this nondescript object and the people who develop them.

The lightbulb, and the incandescent glow that it provides, is both a symbol of idea, of freedom and liberty. But it is an object which permits us to work late into the night, extending the working day and entrapping us in prolonged toil and function.

The original recordings are lo fi, made on minidisk recorder with a low quality microphone, but this character of the materials is evocative of the dim, grainy, obscurity experienced as we strive to peer into the darkness. These original sounds are complemented by transformed materials that represent the light, pure tones which elucidate the noise in counterpoint.

This piece was premiered in a performance at Lincoln Centre, NY as part of MONO NO AWARE’s MONO X festival in December 2016 (mononoawarefilm.com/mono-x-imagesounds).

It was originally performed as a soundtrack in response to the film ‘House” by Ben Rivers – www.benrivers.com/house.html

Original field recordings made by Jim Hobbs – jimhobbs.org/home.html

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