IN ORDER TO CREATE DISCRETE SOUND EXPERIENCES THROUGHOUT A LARGE, OPEN INSTALLATION, DESOTO INCORPORATED “AUDIO SPOTLIGHT” TECHNOLOGY THAT ISOLATES SOUNDS INTO ZONES THAT ARE HEARDWHEN VIEWERSWALK THROUGH CERTAIN AREAS.
to recording devices anthropologists used in the 1900s to document the language and songs of the Cahuilla. In order to create discrete sound experi-
ences throughout a large, open installation, deSoto incorporated “audio spotlight” technology that isolates sounds into zones that are heard when viewers walk through certain areas. Near the entrance, the voice of Cahuilla elder Alvin Siva begins, speaking the story of Tahquitz in English and Cahuilla. Under the boulder the melodious voice of mezzo-soprano Erin Neff sings Siva’s story in Cahuilla. As you approach the phonograph, the “voice” of Tahquitz bellows, vocalized by Neff and deSoto. The sound then leads into a 1918 recording of Cahuilla bird singers by anthropologist Lucille Hooper. In conceptualizing this complex instal-
lation, deSoto invited Neff to collaborate on the vocal interpretation and expression of the story. Neff is an accomplished opera singer and linguist from San Jose, Cal., who has performed with the San Francisco Opera and other Bay Area companies as well as the Jew- ish Music Festival and the Telluride Chamber Music Festival. Neff has sung in multiple lan- guages, including Latin, Tagalog and Cahuilla. With her knowledge of the International Pho- netic Alphabet system, she is able to vocalize texts of non-English languages, including Native languages. For this project, Neff transcribed audio re-
cordings of Siva from 1992. She also listened to Cahuilla recordings collected by Swiss linguist Hansjakob Seiler. Neff then created songs and melodies to the words. (See page 31 for more about Neff ’s process.) In 2009, Neff had sung in German in a liturgical style for deSoto’s sound installation, Klage/Lament, based on stanzas from a Hermann Hesse poem. Previously, deSoto created a work about
Tahquitz, when he was invited to participate in the exhibition Landscape as Metaphor in 1991. The installation, entitled Tahquitz, travelled to various museums for several years. At the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, his installation occupied two rooms painted in dark blue with an applica- tion of pearlescent powder.
Detail of melting ice blocks from the installation of Tahquitz (1994–1996), sound, voice, ceramics, galvanized steel, speakers, animated map, wood and pulverized pearl dust. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 29
PHOTO COURTESY OF LEWIS DESOTO
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