PORT: Navigating Digital Culture Organized by a r t n e t w e b MIT List Visual Arts Center January 25 through March 29, 1997

PROJECT DESCRIPTION Soundings attempts to explore the boundaries between public and private space, as they relate both to experience on-line and in the physical world. Through the construction of an evocative RealAudio score, as well as an animated VRML 2.0 world, audience members will be invited to reflect on these boundaries, and to interact with each other through an innovative Java-based chat environment. Two computers will be playing audio pieces constructed by Gilbert which are specifically meant to investigate these boundaries. By layering ambient recordings made in various public and private spaces with sound "objects" that have been processed using the program SoundHack, two master tracks emerge. Each attempt to juxtapose sounds that exist in "natural" settings with sounds that have been placed in other acoustical environments. The third computer contains descriptions of space by architecture students at NJIT. The work is situated on West Street in Lower Manhatten. The fourth computer contains sound 'objects' that are interlaced with the two audio tracks. Special thanks to Tom Erbe for providing a copy of SoundHack, which was used in sound processing for the audio portions of "Soundings."

JESSE GILBERT Jesse Gilbert is a composer whose work addresses various aspects of physical space. MAREK WALCZAK Marek Walczak is an architect who has recently turned to using the Internet as a design tool. HENNING KNEUPPEL Henning Kneuppel is a student at Baruch College who has recently learned some Java.