木timbreland木

 
木timbreland木 was a concert for the trees of Valley Park in Camp Washington, Cincinnati, performed on September 20, 2020. Conceived and organized by Mark Harris, the event brought together Japanese artist Yoshi Nakamura, based in Baltimore and Tokyo, with Frog Hole?, a Cincinnati band formed by Lura Bentley, Lauren Castillo, Ezra Cline, and Schuyler Smith. Nakamura provided four sound sculptures made from chairs, copper tubing, feathers, stones and other materials as well as a series of visual scores for Frog Hole? to interpret. Familiar with Nakamura’s drawings after visiting him in Baltimore, Harris invited him to design visual scores for Frog Hole? to use. In those scores Nakumura incorporated photographs of Valley Park trees that had been taken by Harris the previous winter.

Nakamura’s unusual instruments, that could neither be tuned nor played conventionally, produced an unpredictable variety of timbres appropriate for an audience of trees with unknown auditory capacities. Nakamura is an artist with a profound hearing impairment who is nevertheless committed to making work about experimental sound and music. Without his cochlear implant Nakamura would be unable to hear anything. Frog Hole? moved around the entire park performing in turn each of the five visual scores that Nakamura composed for the different groups of trees. The segment shown here comprises part 3 of 5 parts. Frog Hole? titled this part “Teaching The Rocks How To Dance.”

Working to highlight alternative paradigms for understanding the role of sound in contemporary life, and interested in acoustic imperfections and new definitions of noise and silence, Harris envisaged 木timbreland木 enabling a fuller appreciation for the green ecology of Camp Washington and a greater curiosity for the sentient capacities of trees.

木timbreland木 drew attention to a community’s enjoyment of local resources of plants, trees, and parks for fuller engagement with this “nature in the city” to improve quality of life in a neighborhood transitioning from industrial to artistic hub. It was a component of Songs the Plants Taught Us that started in early 2019 at Anytime Dept., Cincinnati. The event was made in collaboration with Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center and Wave Pool Gallery.