Sound of Land

The Hiss Of The Bay is a study/excerpt and new amalgam of sounds from an immersive audio exploration about reclaiming peace of mind and creating an internal space for healing during a period of deepening bitterness and ennui. Safety for Black and Queer people is constantly in jeopardy and the compartmentalization required to survive forces our communities to sacrifice, exchange and/or alter parts of ourselves, our experiences and desires.Part of a series of public sound healing explorations that follow a non-linear arc, retracing source traumas, processing difficult emotions and guiding navigation back to oneness by acknowledging these fragments, giving each their space to exist while imagining a course to reconnecting with our deepest selves, cultures and histories. This piece specifically designed for Ocean Beach intends to draw focus away from the bustle, triggers and stress of the city back to the hiss of the bay, back to the sea where life as we know it first emerged. Utilizing a combination of soothing, new age sounds created from vocal processing paired with machinic whirs and dips, the piece is meant to mimic and contort the juxtapose of these diametrically opposed frequencies that fight and play literally in most of our heads every single day. Stretching and distorting this interplay to isolate the origins and essences of these sounds and what they truly mean. For the walk: If you can get to a place where you no longer can see the city (houses, buildings, man made structures) that is ideal, please find this place, take a few moments there before you begin your walk back. If you feel it, please touch the water.

Guiding the audience to the top of Huntington Falls and back down again, this audio tour walks you through a lifetime in 20 minutes.The narrator begins the tour as a 5-year-old in the 1950s. She ages 5-10 years at each stop on the tour, ending in the present day at the end of her life. Inspired in part by Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, this piece explore the idea of “queer time,” investigating the ways in which queer people transgress the linear timelines a life is supposed to follow, while tracing the changing symbolism of San Francisco and Golden Gate Park.

Origins and Transformations is a listening day's journey beginning in the remnants of old growth oak woodlands, winding through what was the largest dune system on the west coast now human transformed into forests, gardens and playgrounds and arriving at the wide Pacific Ocean. Through 12 sections, the sojourner will be guided deeper into live close listening to the ever changing sounds of the wind, birdsong, human laughter and languages, music live and recorded, whirl of bicycles and hum of traffic. Sounds, sights and thoughts intertwine to inspire an expansive sense of time and the connectivity of people, animals, landscape and elements. The route is around 6-7 miles long but each section can be done individually or combined in smaller sections. 1. Origin oak woodland- Ohlone Land, grove left by the landscape designers, regenerated from the trees cut down by refugees from the 1906 earthquake. What sounds do you hear? Which are mechanical, human, animal, plant, weather? What are your sonic origins? 2. Playgrounds- Conservatory of Flowers, Skatepark, 10th street playground, tunnel to music concourse, Ferris wheel, fountains, museums. What mix of sounds do you hear? What does play mean to you? 3. Walled Gardens, gateways and thresholds/liminal spaces - path goes past Japanese tea garden, botanical garden, Shakespeare Garden, the National AIDS Memorial. What sounds do you hear through the walls, fences and hedges? What and who are enclosed and what and who are kept out? 4. Heroes & Memorials- Redwood Grove – What sounds are caused by you as you walk through the grove? Who are your heroes? 5. Hybrids - Rose Garden - What are the impacts of pollination, evolution, genetic engineering? How were you named? Can you hear the sounds of insects? 6. History- Monterey pines and cypress 100 Life spans ending, 13 trees of the colonies, Pioneer mother, log cabin, coyote den, conflicting history: Spanish, Mexican history, Ohlone. Who tells history? What stories are in your head? How do they compare to what has been created in front of you? 7. Engineering land transformation of sand dunes to forests and gardens - Originally Water was pumped from the ground by the wind mills at ocean beach and pumped here. The pond at the top of Strawberry Hill watered the eastern end of the park and Stowe Lake the western half to the sea using gravity alone. What sound do hear from the man-made water features? 8. Human connections - Portals of the Past, Speedway meadow, polo grounds, Spreckels Lake - What sounds do human make? Do they come from their bodies, instruments, electronic devices? 9. Animals Wild and Domestic 1- Bison, red tail hawks, ravens, parrots, dog park – What sounds do you hear that come from animals? 10. Animals Wild and Domestic 2- Angler's lodge and casting pools, coyotes & horse stables – What sounds do you here that come from animals? 11. Harnessing the elements - Murphy windmill & Dutch windmill - Air, Water & Earth. How do the landscape and architecture affect the sound of the air and sea? 12. Origins Pacific Ocean – dunes, beach, waves. The origin of life comes from the sea and we carry sea in our own bodies - How do the sounds of wind and water affect other sounds?

“The Golden Gate Park installation of Giovanna Iorio’s Voice of Trees was curated by Michael Rothenberg and Youssef Alaoui. Voices include: Missy Church Rohan Da Costa Mk Chavez Paul Corman Roberts Youssef Alaoui KR Morrison Tureeda Mikell Colleen McKee Maw Shein Win Michael Warr Chun Yu Richard Loranger Sharon Coleman Jack Foley Jennifer Hasegawa Evan Karp Michael Rothenberg Terri Carrion Giovanna Iorio Kim Shuck Alexandra Naughton

The audience is invited into the fold of the National AIDS Memorial Grove park site circumference with the ushering of a gentle build of complimentary sounds based off their current surrounding like footsteps, bending tree branches, clattering leaves, wind breathing by their ears, soft conversations in the distance and the buzz of nearby cars driving by in succession. As they are welcomed into the entrance of the trail they begin to feel a sense of stalking and swarming along the parameter’s edge of the memorial site. A slow build in sound volume and intensity increases as the audience makes their way walking along the trail as they peek down into the center of the park memorial site with a curious sense of wonder and intrigue through the chiaroscuro light beams dovetailing through the nature formed trees trunks, moss drippings and floral blooms to the heart of what they are about to embark into below. This flirtation of walking along the outskirts of the memorial site while listening to the sounds of nature and humankind, and peering into the seemingly forbidden center compliments a feeling of anticipation as the audience is guided around the entire 360 degree circumference before being permitted to enter into the heart of the memorial site. All the while, the sound score begins to incorporate such things as, but not bound or confined to, iconic LGBTQ voices both sung and spoken, protesters, activists, preachers, politicians, disco and dance music, words of writers and poets etc. spliced into the sonic fold in creatively distorted ways. As the audience makes their way into the memorial site at the point of completing an entire exterior journey around the grounds, they begin to make connections between the provided sonic score and the visual moments around them like a babbling brook, empty or occupied benches, engraved memorial stones varying in size and familiarity of the dedicated, beautiful flowers, and a seemingly infinite choice of pathways to navigate their way forward on this journey. Eventually, a dell in unveiled which reveals a partially dressed middle aged overweight gay man of color and mixed ethnicity in the middle of a plot of grass sitting at a small table with a vanity mirror applying drag makeup while singing to himself as if no one else is around, although he is surrounded by a suitcase of women’s clothes scattered about while picnicking onlookers are equidistantly seated amidst the drag. This performer stays confined to his scene as he goes back and forth from applying makeup to trying on various drag performance clothing articles. Once he feels his makeup and clothing looks are complete, he then packs up and exits the dell.

A Dove is a Pigeon is a Dove is speculative documentation of a pigeon's stroll through Golden Gate Park, a place that once had several pigeons but now has very few. Starting on the sidewalk in the Richmond District and ending on the sidewalk in the Inner Sunset, the walk is made up of sounds recorded on site from a late summer day. Each recording is a 1-5 minute looped audio documentation of the space recorded at pigeon height. As the participant walks along, the sound of the recordings will mix with the live sounds of the walk, juxtaposing memory with the present day. In addition to the sounds, every other space contains a musing on the rock dove, as well as on the concept of infrasound, a tool the birds use to navigate their environments. Participants are invited to reflect on their own experiences with Golden Gate Park, as well as their relationship to the common pigeon.

Wavy Diary is a sonic piece inspired by the man made Spreckels lake and the San Francisco Model Yacht Club that invites the listener to hear the interplay between music and the sounds of a yacht. Spreckels lake is a reminder of the thin line between nature and civilization that built San Francisco.The walk, a part of the larger Origins and Transformation is approximately 5-10 minutes and composed by composer/artist/musician Dario Slavazza.

"Portals: Visions of Freedom and Abolition in The Past and Future" documents how it feels to walk through neighborhoods in San Francisco as Black, Queer and Trans people. Using emotionally charged textured soundscapes and spoken word testimony of racial profiling and sentiments about the police, this sound art experience explores themes of alienation and abolition. Portals begins at the corner of Sycamore Street and 623 Valencia Street in the Mission. Participants are then guided to the opening of Clarion Alley, where they will be led through the mural-filled passage. The soundwalk features abstract emotional textured soundscape loops, spoken word, and audio that directly interacts with the content of some of the murals. It takes place primarily in Clarion Alley and addresses how the alley in and of itself is a creative space that serves as a portal into past (and idealized) versions of the Mission, when it wasn’t as gentrified and sterile and when freaks, punks, and artists flourished in the neighborhood. Produced and composed by Elsa Trash, Labryssa Deskins, and Titania Kumeh as part of the Big Freak artist collective and band based in Oakland, California.

Growth is a sound art experience that begins at the 1969 Ruth Asawa mosaic of the same name at 580 Capp St. It's a series of guided meditations situated in the urban landscape of the Mission. Participants are invited to slow down, listen, reflect on the past, and contemplate our collective responsibility to future generations. Proceed to each stop from west to east. This experience will take approximately 50-60 minutes. Wear comfortable shoes, use headphones, and please stay alert to traffic and other hazards while you walk. Produced by Rumi Koshino and Fereshteh Toosi as part of the Oil Ancestors project, with music by Danny Paul Grody. http://oilancestors.com/growth Rumi Koshino is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in San Francisco. Her intuitive process of making art is informed by everyday experiences as well as social, emotional, and political climates that surround it. She recently published a limited-edition art book, Solo Walks -The First 100 Days, from RITE Editions. Rumi will be a resident artist at AGA Lab in Amsterdam in 2021. She holds a BFA and MFA from the University of Washington. https://rumikoshino.com/ Fereshteh Toosi's artworks foster animistic connections through encounter, exchange, and sensory inquiry. Fereshteh lives and works in El Portal, Florida, on stolen lands still stewarded by the Miccosukee and Seminole people. Responding to place, Fereshteh designs experiences for small audiences. These intimate, immersive live art events are often produced in conjunction with small sculptures, short films, installations, scores, and poetry. http://fereshteh.net Danny Paul Grody is a solo musician and founding member of San Francisco based bands Tarentel and The Drift. He is a self taught guitarist, and the melodies at the core of Danny’s songwriting bring to mind his love of West African kora, finger-style guitar and all things minimal, repetitive & hypnotic. https://dannypaulgrody.wordpress.com