PAA members Liza Kerrigan and Gretchen Seager checked out the PAA supported
(through a 2022 grant) Freq_Wave exhibit at the Fulcrum Arts Festival in Pasadena.
For the event, Carl Michael von Hausswolff gathered 12 artists to work on specific
sound frequencies tracks, which he then mixed and piped through speakers all
around the historic Mt Wilson Observatory’s Carnegie 100” Hooker Telescope. The
event just ended last month.
Von Hausswolff’s goal through the exhibit was to show that artists are aware of the
problems our oceans face from pollution, over fishing, and dying coral reefs. He
believes we should not exploit nature but work with it, and through it, since we are in
nature too.
Liza reported: “ In addition to von Hausswolff’s constant sound loop, and the dim
lighting, two young composers preformed avant garde pieces while participants
looped the observatory and looked out to the awesome evening sky above the LA
basin. We then looked inward through a telescope eye piece to the stars. The sounds
and video visuals rocked us as if lying at the bottom of the ocean, submerged by
crashing waves overhead. For a second performance, we experienced a wonderful
complex composition on complexity and repetition that had sound vibrating through
our brains. We then looked at Saturn through the telescope which had us drifting
away in the dimly lit and space altering shadows of the observatory!”
Thank you Liza for this report on your amazing experience!