Airforms was first presented at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art [Scottsdale, Arizona] in April of 2004. The work was inspired by a group of experimental houses designed by Wallace Neff in the 1940's using a process he called airform construction. The houses were built by spraying concrete over an inflated balloon structure. Inspired by the nautilus sea shell, the houses were an investigation into the aesthetic possibilities of structures formed by air, and the psychological effects of living inside a kind of organic space.
The installation attempted to reflect Neff's ideas in the use of air as an inspirational skeleton and physical presence in the construction of the forms as well as the audio. Five objects were built by laying plaster over small balloons. The sound work was created using the transformed sound of a breath blown through an old wooden organ pipe. Both essentially built from Roden's own breath.
The original multi-channel audio work consisted of five small speakers, each placed within a single plaster form. The version for this cd has been re-organized for stereo listening. The lack of narrative structure attempts to create an audio space in line with Neff's architectural interests in the airform projects. Listening at low volume is recommended.
All sound generated and organized by Steve Roden at the Bubble House, February 2005.
Special thanks to Erin Kane, Max Presneill, and Marilu Knode.
Limited to 600 copies.
Released in a slim cardboard sleeve.
United States