Why always rely on the visual: we have other senses as well.

This page features two projects. The first is a sound recording collage made while in Tokyo entitled “Where Is My Oginoshima?” Tokyo proved shocking with its chaotic fullness ranging in noise type between machines, crowds, announcements, and/or construction. Its loudness was particularly disturbing after having spent the previous week in the peaceful mountain village of Oginoshima.

This sound poem, thus, documents both the sounds of Tokyo and acts as a search for peace, for “My Oginoshima.” Executed on a basic tape recorder, without the ability to mix separate tracks, but rather to rewind and record on top, it is a crude composition. Contributing to its rawness is the fact that it was done while carrying and using a camera, a sketchbook, a towel, food, water; while sweating in the August sun trying as best as possible to find a way through the Tokyo crowds and complicated transportation system, in search, like all tourists, for memorable or significant artifacts.

The collage was played at Meiji University, in the dark, to a college audience, including Reiko Tomita of Team Zoo who remarked that she had never noticed before that that is how Tokyo sounded.

The second sound project - “Flood, See, Nothing” - was a proposal intended to highlight and romanticize the qualities of a particular place: the west facing train tracks crossing Mass Ave at MIT.

Between the perfectly majestic structures of “The Institute” and the downtown clamour of Central Square is this desert: the only place on/off campus that expresses freedom. Extending west into the sunset, long and reflective, the tracks suggest infinity, a journey, adventure. Surrounded by windowless early-to-mid 20th century industrial architecture, the site is a visually quiet place of reflection. The train hardly ever passes by, so most of the time, they are empty.

The project proposed to emanate the sounds of moving 19th century trains (steam, gear noises, whistles and blows) from the western direction, toward Mass Ave, to call attention to people crossing over the tracks to look into that direction and enjoy a moment of romanticized infinity. To further augment the rustic, open country feeling, the project also proposed to carry the dirt from the train track area across the street so that people would be crossing them over dirt rather than pavement.

After much research into its implementation (decibel levels, the sound quality, power source, funding) MIT & the MBTA did not grant it permission citing complicated safety and jurisdictional concerns.