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CIRCA/IMET AiR

Tracing Bio-Buggy: Ear to the Harbor: (B-BEH) Baltimore City, Inner Harbor. Artist in residency – August – December 2021. This project is in collaboration with Dr. Eric Schott, IMET, area of research, Health and disease of aquatic organisms and, Charmaine Dahlenburg, National Aquarium. This past week I began to experiment with spectrographic imaging based on underwater recordings from the Inner Harbor using the software RAVEN. A baby step towards understanding what I hear vs. what is actually being recorded. The sound that is heard is the sound of urban runoff into the small canal-like area from the pier. Just off in the distance in the recording is the sound of traffic traveling over the Jones Falls overpass, East Pratt Street near Presidents Street. Vibrations from the automobiles on the pavement are traveling through the concrete into the body of the water transmitted out into the Harbor. On the other side […]

Community Art/Science, Ecology

“In 2011, I photographed the last house standing in Fairfield and returned a week later to document the interior of the house, but the house had been demolished with all of Jimmy and Debbie’s belongings still inside…” INDEX: 1. Garrett Park sidewalk murals linked to IMET Biodiversity Study. 2. Brooklyn Enoch Pratt Free Library murals. 3. Biodiversity Study – art, science, and “biodisk” documentation4. “biodisk” art and science installation5. Benjamin Franklin High School, Rain Garden Mural6. Contemporary Archeology (solid waste and popular culture)7. Curtis Bay Alleyway Mural Project. Trash removal & beautification. OTHER PROJECTS8. Maree Farring Elementary Middle School – color palet project. The image above, “Last House Standing: Fairfield” is from Mapping Baybrook, a collaboration with Dr. Nicole King, American Studies, UMBC. I photographed the last house standing in Fairfield in 2011 then a week later I returned to document the interior of the house, but the house had […]

Tenebrionidae beetles

As part of the CIRCA/IMET AiR project, I connected to Dr. Allen Place, who is raising special Tenebrionidae beetles that he is breeding to grow mealworms that will eventually be processed into food for salmon that is being held in the ARC in the basement of IMET. The food is special in that it has high protein and supports the salmon’s biomes. Dr. Place gave me about 20 of the beetles, 1/3 females and 2/3 males for me to “listen” to them and to learn more about potentially breeding. The following soundtracks are from a recording set up in a cool dark and quiet place located in my basement. As far as I can tell they do not vocalize, though, in several instances, I think I can hear some small squeaking sounds, but am not sure. For the first 3 tracks, I am using a stereo pair RODE M5 mics […]

BF Hornet Performance

This past Saturday, August 14 I made this recording of a swarm of bald-faced hornets who have been building a nest in our front yard magnolia tree. I ended up recording them for over 3 hours as I could not retrieve my equipment – to finally extract my equipment I had to dress up for winter wearing a coat designed for 20 degrees below “0”, 2 mosquito screen hats, and work gloves that only resulted in one sting through the top of my left-hand glove– I felt pretty foolish until I heard the recording. The excerpt here is right after placing the microphone at the mouth of the nest – there is a slight lull in their sound until they discovered the mic and then began to swarm. The whole recording is 3+ hours. An observation of the recording that I noted while looking at the full 3-hour waveform is that the […]

BROOD X: ’04 ’21

The above image was taken, May 16, 2021, underneath a magnolia tree, BROOD X 17-year (Great Eastern Brood) cicada in the final stage of molting prior to hardening of the new exoskeleton. My immersive experience these past six weeks with the BROOD X, 17-cicada 2021 phenomena resonate deeply with my molecules, imprinting them sonically. For two of the six weeks of the above ground cicada presence, my wife and I rented a cabin not far from where we live to fully experience the BROOD with minimal human noise, and wooded park traffic. The experience constructs a metaphor for COVID reemergence from 17+ months of quarantine and isolation. The only signs of the BROOD X are located high among the tops of trees – copper-colored leaves attached to evenly spaced out “tree flags” hang down waiting for the vast drop to earth. Another 17-years life cycle has begun; a bio-rain of […]

100120 – 120320

The works here are experiments from the past few months in quarantine that include drawings, field recordings, zoom, and audio performances. The final works are from two different collaborations that have become an important part of my artistic routine during the 2020 pandemic. The second to last work is called ZOOM gestures series experimentation with multi-perspective using every device I have to log into zoom. The final work is a trans-national artist collective made up of anywhere from two to ten artists involved in sound/image tele-performances. The following are excerpts from my most recent sketchbook that I began October 1, 2020. These are experiments with depictions of memories from the day of sound, such as zoom conversations, meetings, radio, television, traffic and other ambient sounds in the background mashed up together into one or two images. Listen to the recording here. uni.Sol_38soundtracks, unisol.bandcamp.com/album/hall00w sound artists: Ludovic Medery (Belgium)Stephen Bradley, video (USA)experiMENTALien […]

Bells, Bugs, Whispers & Plinks

Bradley & Ruchalski broadcast quarterly at WGXC 90.7 FM. Learn more about Wave Farm’s efforts to support artists interested in the contemporary role or radio. The above image is a cable that is connected to a hydrophone that we are using to record the sound of a small lake not far from Ringing Rock, PA – approximately 10 west. BBWP Broadcast 3. Here is March 31st, 2-3 PM EST, 2020 broadcast where we focus on hidden sounds, difficult to hear due to physics, out of human hearing range or just too quiet or it is masked due to human-machine noise. For the hard of hearing. We deeply investigate sound vibrations, natural, unnatural, bioacoustics, sonification, that involves acoustic interventions at specific sites.

BIOME TELLS

The new work, Oh, Murky Waters Chorus is inspired by a biodiversity study by a diverse group of civic scientists, local ecologists, and artists/designers from the Baltimore Underground Science Space (BUGSS) and scientists from Institue of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET). Not shown in this photograph will be a biodisc that will be installed in the aquarium in the very near future along with 19 gallons of Harbor water. What is a biodisc? It is a system for collecting bioorganisms from the water. Organisms attach to the biodisc and make it their home. The biodisc is pulled up once a month to be documented, scrapped and biomaterial sequenced as a DNA to identify all the organisms in the water. The sound component is generated from electrical currents in the water agitated by the organisms’ activities that general a sonic ambiance that floats above the head of the viewers. Next to […]

uni.Sol sound project

united artists for well being of solar system Experimental music/sound project by Slavek Kwi located in Ireland. Invited artists perform at a particular time selected by Kwi in Ireland time — that matches their time zone. This is the latest performance, uni.Sol X by the artists, Stephen Bradley, Darius Ciuta, experiMENTALien, Jan Kruml, Roy Adams, and Slavek Kwi Telepathic:.:tune up:::no.5:.:Friday 21th June 2019 from 9 pm to 10pm(timezone: Irish Summer Time). A music exploration via telepathic channels, unexplored and alternative ways of inter-connecting around the globe, creating a feeling of connection. Each artist participated by performing anytime between 9-10 PM, Irish Summer Time. I performed for most of the hour, Friday, June 21, 4-5 PM EST. Here is what the final project sounded like. I recommend that you listen to the “subjective” version as it allows space for each artist who performed. Here is a list of the artists, multiverse: […]

Spider+Cricket

Front end image – Spider + Cricket installation as of July 16, 2019. Bradley & Ruchalski were recently awarded the Wave Farm artist-residency to realize SpiderCricket (Sp+Cr). Residency takes place July 12-21, 2019. We will broadcast several times on Wave Farm’s radio station WGXC 90.7 FM, Radio for Open Ears. Stephen Bradley and Edward Ruchalski’s SpiderCricket (Sp+Cr) is a multi-phonic ecological radio installation informed by Wave Farm’s biophonic and radiophonic soundscape. The core of Sp+Cruses a “spider web” wind-harp structure, which also functions as an antenna for low-power FM transmitters that broadcast on the property. Using DIY micro-mixers, numerous solar-powered FM radio receivers are tuned to one of the broadcast channels. Each wire’s unique length is tuned to a particular frequency that mixes with other sonic algorithms. Field recordings made during the dawn and dusk cycles are incorporated into Sp+Cr sculpture and into the final, live WGXC radio broadcast. Here is an […]

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