Faces in the City, an installation based on James Kavanaugh's poetry of the same title, is accompanied by video footage and original music that I set to his poems. The project is a multimedia portrait of the city and its inhabitants. Audience members re-orchestrate the music in real-time by sitting on seat cushions that trigger instruments on and off. They also record Kavanuagh's poetry into a MAX patch for playback throughout the installation. I intentionally left space for only sixty one-minute recordings, so that the collective narrative would slowly evolve as older recordings were replaced. Participants also interacted with the video through a live camera feed.
Supported by a Mellon Research Grant, DMCA, YSEA, and the Sudler Fund.