A conversation with Arcadia University Art Gallery Director, Richard Torchia and gallery guests on March 2, 2014. During Maria Dumlao's solo show, "Expanded Earthly World" at Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia: http://voxpopuligallery.org/exhibitions/expanded-earthly-world/. 

Expanded Earthly World Vox Populi Gallery Talk with Richard Torchia

2003-2008, sound, variable duration
A project in which I created a daily news ballad using source material from the media by singing newspaper articles over sounds culled from that morning’s television and radio news broadcasts.  The news itself is transformed into a lullaby of sorts, while ordinary sounds of real radio broadcasts are electronically manipulated and abstracted.  Each day, a new world of source material is made available by the global news media and transformed in to a new Daily by me.  The result is a combination of tape collage with news radio.  Dailies imagines a world in which Pierre Schaeffer and Jim Lehrer could be the new Burt Bacharach and Hal David and I’m their Dionne Warwick.

*Work was supported by Elaine Kaufmann.
**Work was supported by Treva Wurmfeld.
March 24, 25, and 26, 2006 created during a residency at Experimental Television Center.

Daily - July 30, 2007*

Daily - March 26, 2006

Daily - March 25, 2006**

Daily - March 24, 2006**

Daily - February 3, 2006**

Recorded during the Listen Here Now workshop, this sound walk investigated how listening, recording and mapping can transform our sense of place, time and physical relationship to a given location in the area around Zion Hill Church along Grays Ferry Avenue. Using a map and a recording device, each participant navigated their walks based on what they heard, thereby shaping the trajectory of their sonic journey. Accompanied by my 17-month old son, my recording resulted in an exploration of the layout of the surroundings based on what he heard and saw. Our sound walk ultimately produced a recording of his experience (and his reactions to this experience) as the environment faded into the background.

Lee-soundwalk

By Brainstormers, 2009.  "May I Please Have A Sip Of Your Power?" is a 20-minute sound installation that addresses injustice and power inequities. In a tone that ranges from the self-effacing to the demanding to the absurd, an ever-polite computer-generated voice sounds a broken record of questions that asks for what should be unquestionable rights.

The sound installation was on view at the LGBT Center in NYC, as part of Then and Now, a group show comprised of almost 50 site-specific works commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

An excerpt of the sound piece is also included in the Sound of Art, a compilation LP published by Art Fag City.

http://www.brainstormersreport.net/Projects.html
