Unsilent Night

Last night we brought in the longest night in an unusual way...

We and 15 or so others gathered uptown with an odd assortment of music players: boomboxes, MP3 players, I-pads.  We also brought our jar lanterns that we made last year for Solstice (our wool ones just fit so nicely on the nature table at home...).

 We were a part of a participatory sound installation, Phil Kline's Unsilent Night.  Playing our individual parts on cassette tapes or digital files, we strode through the town for 45 minutes, listening to bells, chimes, gongs, voices...depending on who you were walking next to, the experience changed by the minute.  It was so lovely - a bit like wandering through a gamelan orchestra on overdrive.

One...two...three...play!

 

 We walked up the main drag, and down the other side...down an alley...

 Into the foyer of a small deserted mall, just to hear the acoustics.  We were in the company of a good number of sound geeks, including my husband.

 Dan recorded the whole event...

 so did I...

 The streets are pretty deserted right now (our little town of 8,000 grows by 20,000 when the students are here, but it's winter break of course), so we also wound our way through a Chipotle's and the local Pita Pit.

 Someone led us into the parking garage (remember, sound geeks?).

Listening to the acoustics against the concrete wall

 We ended up on the campus Green...

Dan recorded from below as we climbed the steps of the auditorium to play our boxes from the balcony.  Gradually our tapes ended, and we all nodded to each other and went on our own way. Lovely Solstice eve...