Artist Statement

Performance, Live sound and video work, 2016. Single-channel video, multi-channel sound

“Terrainor” is a live performance work that uses the practices of field recording and site listening to provide both raw sound and video material and a structure for the composition built from them. The project is a form of expanded phonography that uses concepts of soundscape to structure readings of landscape. In it specific sites are documented on both micro and macro scales, and use the local acoustic conditions to guide the process of sonic mapping. This approach results in recordings that are not traditionally representational, but instead reflect the experience of moving into the sites’ geographies in ways that are idiosyncratic and reference the social and experiential definitions of site as much as physical ones.
In performance the field recordings are processed and spatialized through a multi-channel sound system accompanied by a single channel of video. The material cycles through a number of scenes each of which provides a distinct and particular method of navigation through it. The structure and pacing of the material is designed to encourage a sustained and focused experience, one that clearly demarcates the shifting representations of audio and video in each scene.

Video: Terrainor

• Ed Osborn (USA) ’s focus in electronic media pieces is on materials and content that are not new, but rather are based on phenomena that have been around for some time: kinetics, feedback, mechanical instability, perceptions of physical space. Osborn’s work explores of these kinds of conditions and materials rather than to serve as a response strategy for the newest technological developments. The audio and video material in Terrainor cycles through scenes that combine processed audio recordings with slowly evolving video imagery. Like much of his work, the structure and pacing is designed to encourage a sustained, immersive, and contemplative experience.  roving.net

Full text and photo (PDF) p. 207-208