Steve Roden - visiting lecture

Twice, Steve Roden's work was interrupted by nature with an amazing result. During his talk, he was showing his piece and a thunderstorm blew into town Since we were all in the Commons Theatre, the sound was really muffled, and it seemed as if the rain and thunder sound were a part of his piece. But, alas, when his piece finished, the rain and thunder sounds continued. And again, during his workshop talk, he was playing some work, and there was the sound of birds chirping in the background. And again, when his piece stopped it was revealed that the bird sounds were indeed not part of his work.

Both of these occasions were interesting to me, that perhaps I wanted to use nature sounds in my work. I certainly want to incorporate natural elements, so blending field recordings into the sound seemed like a natural fit. In both of Roden's pieces, the sound seemed like it was made stronger with the "field recordings". The work was abstract, and slightly wandering, and at times decisions that seemed heavy-handed to me. The large-scale wooden installation with localized sound and colored light certainly had some strong decisions- a few giant abstractly constructed piles of work scaffoldesque structures, scattered around a large room with speakers under each pile, piles being lit with different colored light- all of which were visually very strong decisions, but seemed to be completely arbitrary, as if the piece wasn't aware of itself.

At first it seemed liberating for me- just go ahead and do what you want, however you want it. But during his talk, there never arose evidence of strong conceptual foundations. There were elements that seemed to quite literally be the structure of the piece, that turned out to be not more than a visual flourish, filling the space.

I was left with the liberation of being encouraged to do what resonated most with me, yet a confirmed sense that decisions need to be intentional, supported, responsible.