Momentum: an experiment in the unexpected

Marc Weidenbaum

  •  
  • Josh Azzarella
    Still from Untitled #8, 2004 
    Video on DVD
    Run time 2 minutes, 31 seconds
    Gift of the Moore Family Trust
    2014.06

     

Born 1966, New Haven, Connecticut
Lives and works in San Francisco

Sonic Frame, 2014
Original soundtracks on tablets
Chosen artwork: Untitled #8 (2004) by Josh Azzarella

For Marc Weidenbaum, Josh Azzarella’s video Untitled #8, in which a form slowly shifts, suggests a visual parallel to the ethereal nature of sound: perceptible yet intangible. Through his online collaborative project Disquiet Junto, Weidenbaum collected and curated original works of music and sound from an international community of colleagues, which he then added to unsynced iterations of Azzarella’s silent video. Intended to explore transformation and stasis, the sound elements create auras, halos, and contextual sonic frameworks that gently alter the viewer's experience and perception of Azzarella's video art.   

Focusing on the intersection of sound, art, and technology, sound artist and author Marc Weidenbaum founded the website Disquiet.com in 1996. Through Disquiet, he initiated and moderates the Disquiet Junto group, inviting musicians to respond on SoundCloud to weekly compositional projects. Weidenbaum is also an instructor at the Academy of Art in San Francisco where he teaches a course on the role of sound in media.

In the development of Marc Weidenbaum's Sonic Frame, almost eighty musicians from around the world contributed original recordings for potential inclusion. The majority of these recordings, seventy in all, were produced as part of a project in the weekly Disquiet Junto series. Each week the Disquiet Junto online community responds to a different compositional prompt. Another seven tracks were created by composers who Weidenbaum approached directly to participate in the piece. Some of these musicians had previously participated in Junto projects, and he wanted to ensure their involvement in this one. In the end twenty-one recordings were selected for inclusion, seven different ones for each of the three frames.

 

Participating composers

Set #1
Taylor Deupree
Van Stiefel
Natalia Kamia
Naoyuki Sasanami
Carlos Russell
Mark Rushton
Paolo Mascolini (Sōzu)

 

Set #2
Stephen Vitiello
Steve Roden
ævol
Marcus Fischer
Julia Mazawa
Westy Reflector + Lee Rosevere
Ezekiel Kigbo (The Atlas Room)

 

Set #3
Steiner (Stijn Hüwels)
Christina Vantzou
Scanner
Inlet (Cory K.)
Jean Reiki
Marco Raaphorst
Bad Trails