"Art is Business" #DCASEgrants
The City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) announces the Neighborhood Access Program. This program aims to support the cultural vitality of every Chicago neighborhood via grant programs and partnerships designed to be responsive to the complex needs of individual communities. This program offers direct grants for community-based arts and culture activities.
AIR 2022 Reggie Nicholson @ Phantom Gallery Chicago
We’re excited to announce Tactical Urbanism in the Horizontal Landscape "Sound Scape Tapestry," The funds will create a dynamic platform for large-scale installations, moving image works, and sound performances.
What is a Soundscape? Close your eyes and listen to the space you are in.
What is the meaning of soundscape in music?
Definitions for soundscape sound·scape. A soundscape composition - an electroacoustic musical composition creating a sound portrait of a sound environment. A soundscape is a sound or combination of sounds that forms or arises from an immersive environment. The study of soundscape is the subject of acoustic ecology.
"Spirit Lake" Research capturing the soundscape of Lake Michigan's 51th Street walking path.
"Spirit Lake" June 2022, a work in progress
Acrylic on Black Foam Broad, Wetting Agent, 36" X 40"
"Spirit Lake" November 2022, a work in progress
Acrylic on Black Foam Broad, Wetting Agent, 36" X 40"
This project is funded in part by #DCASEgrants.
Describing the artistic vision of her work:
At this plateau in her life, she started reflecting on how her work affects lives. In 2005 she started her series on vibration sounds that teach the body at all levels how to have a new experience. Bringing us into focus with the opportunities to choose new ways to live out our lives in each unique moment, they mirror to us things that we have forgotten about ourselves, reminding us just how powerful we are in changing our reality.
Vibration Sound Narratives was a four-year exploration of various jazz musicians, improvisational jazz, creative music, electric music, and alternative sound. I created abstract sketches responding to their sound streams and what I felt or saw during these performances. Vibration Sound Narratives are a comprehensive system of patterns or vibrations that teach our bodies at all levels how to have a new experience. They activate a practice similar to Vibra Keys associated with sound, shape, and image in the context of emotional response and unlock visual-spatial intelligence in the artists among us who think in pictures.
What inspires her most is the feeling that she has a social responsibility as an artist to record history and to thrust awareness about life, the earth, and life in the passing to the viewer to cast another perspective upon to view the world.
These explorations affect her personally because she is focused on examining what transpires from the artist to the canvas. She uses the canvas to stage experiences and to create an observational view for others as spectators at the event. She uses the same approach she uses in the professional world with
colleagues in conceptualizing an installation or group exhibition or planning for a mural project she employs in the classroom while working with teachers and their students. This dialog helps her to reflect the same continuity in her professional works.
The instantly recognizable style and sound of Reggie Nicholson have elevated him to one of the most distinctive, inventive, and inspirational drummers/percussionists of his generation; he is a formidable technician but one who uses his considerable skills constructively and with infinite taste.
Born in Chicago, his drum concept fitted perfectly the needs of many extraordinary Chicago musicians. Nicholson first gained a reputation as a drummer and percussionist in his hometown of Chicago. A Southside native, he graduated from Cornell Elementary, where he played drums for the “Area A Band” of exceptional music students, and Hirsch High School as a concert band percussionist. He then used a 4-year music scholarship to Chicago State University’s percussion program. During his early days before moving to NYC, Nicholson worked around Chicago with many great musicians and performed regularly at the famous Southside organ club, The Other Place. An active Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) member since 1979, Nicholson has absorbed the organization's musical influences to compose and improvise original music.
RESEARCH REFERENCES:
Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections
The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage is home to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, a public resource named for the founding director of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
The Sound of Life: What Is a Soundscape?
May 4, 2017 | Marinna Guzy | Comments
This is the first article in a two-part series.
Marinna Guzy is a sound artist, writer, and photographer focused on the intersection of art and social justice, especially in relation to culture and the environment. She currently serves as the supervising sound editor and sound designer at Raconteur Sound.
