Listening Station at Born Digital, CAM Raleigh

installation view, Born Digital, CAM Raleigh

LAKE ODESSA, 2012

listening station, audio multiple, silk-screen print on 90-lb

cotton paper, handmade cases, CD-Rs, found paper inserts,

edition of 100

Listen to LAKE ODESSA on Headphone Commute's podcast.

Born Digital | CAM Raleigh

LAKE ODESSA (2012) audio multiple, silk-screen print on 90lb cotton paper,

handmade cases, found paper inserts, edition of 100. Print originally designed with Mixel by Cole Pierce, based on collages by Able Parris and Paul Soulellis.

I'm pleased to announce that I have a mix CD and sound installation included in this show at CAM Raleigh, and I will be DJ'ing the opening reception. In conjunction with the Born Digital exhibition, my music mix will be released on Headphone Commute's Podcast series on January 28th.

Born Digital on view January 28 through April 30, 2012
Showcasing a growing body of contemporary art that is visitor dependent and without the use of specific interfaces like keyboards or touch screens—aspects of this exhibition are movement-driven, empowering visitors to exercise their creativity and act on their curiosity. Born Digital features the work of 12 national and international pioneers of digital and new media art. Most of the featured artworks in the exhibition employ computer vision technologies, more commonly known as interactive video. The combined use of digital video cameras and custom computer software allows each artwork to “see,” and respond to, bodies, colors and/or motion in the space of the museum. Don’t miss this museum premiere!

Born Digital contributors include: Advanced Media Lab, Jacob Ciocci, R. Luke DuBois, Channel TWo, Brent Green, Ajay Kurian, LoVid, Cole Pierce, Dennis Rosenfeld, Daniel Rozin, Scenocosme, and Karolina Sobecka

Join us for an opening preview celebration
Sweets, savories, and drinks
Friday, January 27, 2012

Members Opening 7–9 p.m.
RSVP at members@camraleigh.org

Wear your rocket-high heels or fastest track shoes
Live DJ — Born Digital Exhibiting artist Cole Pierce

Audio

Too late distracted by colepierce

textured soundscape, structure in flux, based on a collaboration with Tyler Carter. 2010

2=4=8 by colepierce

Guitar by Kendrick Shackleford, electronic manipulation by Cole Pierce. 2010

Cheers by colepierce

Manipulated music box samples, NYE field recording. 2010

I am currently editing a video installation, comprised of footage of an underwater video camera tied to the end of a fishing pole. These tracks will be part of the soundtrack.

Piano Clockworks

Piano Clockworks by colepierce

Last year I self released Piano Clockworks, an album of gritty ambient music that was also a sound installation at Old Gold. Here is the title track.

Check out the rest of the show on my website.

Per Second

2 Channel Video and Sound Installation by Cole Pierce

6 Channel Interactive Sound Installation by Dustin Camilleri

Upcoming Show, Per Second Project

Friends and colleagues,

This weekend we are exhibiting new work in a show titled Per Second taking place in a vacant storefront in Logan Square as part of the Milwaukee Ave Arts Festival. Cole Pierce presents a two channel video installation in collaboration with Dustin Camilleri, who created a six channel sound piece in response to one of the videos. Roxane Hopper presents a single channel video called Echo Amphitheater, and an installation composed of photographs and a neon wall sculpture.

Please join us for the opening reception on Friday, July 31st from 6 to 10pm.

Location:
2827 N Milwaukee Ave.
Chicago, IL

When:
July 31st - 6 pm - 10 pm *Reception
August 1st - Noon - 10 pm
August 2nd - Noon - 8 pm

Check out the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival website for the schedule of events and view the map of participating galleries.

Facebook event invitation

Work in Progress: Experiments in Audio Degeneration

Liftoff tape bell loop by colepierce

liftoff-tape-bell-loop

Work in Progress, experimenting with analog distortion, this track is comprised of samples of stages of audio degeneration. I'm using a loop of bells and kids toys that I made with Forrester, recorded to cassette and stripped off portions of the magnetic tape with typewriter liftoff tape. This was digitized, looped and dubbed back onto the damaged cassette, then I distorted the tape further by wrinkling it with my fingers. This was again digitized and I layered the audio into 3 tracks, applying effects using Ableton.

Tight Quarters, Full Version

The working title for this piece is Distortion/Tight Quarters (2009) and is intended it to be a wall sized projection.

The source material for the video is a glitch between a DVD recorder and a monitor. The audio was originally a piano recording, but it has gone through several generations of analog and digital manipulations.

about Domestic Firefly

I'm showing a 2 channel video installation Roxane's basement, aka Low Level Vision aka Vega Estates. We tested it yesterday and it was more intense than I expected. The first video plays for 4 minutes, then is off for 4 minutes. It looks like a shifty op art painting, but is actually a car window sun shade thing for kids. I shot it up close with a wide angle lens to suggest a spacial perspective. The original idea was to create something so optically disorienting that it becomes a visceral sensation. I think this is one tactic to locate the limits of our cognition. I've been into contradictions between the abstract and pragmatic, conceptual and visceral. The juxtopositions experienced are something of an everyday epiphany.

The soundtrack for this video is the first real song i've made. For the most part it is gentle and harmonic, a slow lulling rhythm of hums, whistles, ticks and tones. It subtly increases the hypnotic effect of the imagery. Not that it matters, but I think it is fitting that the source material for the song was a recording of a toy top. I say it doesn't matter because the material is manipulated beyond recognition. However, I find a spinning top to have a fitting relation to the notion of locating the limits of cognition. The 2nd video loops consistently in the space behind the window shade video. It is a field of fireflies shot in rural Iowa. It is very dark but you can barely make out a landscape. The soundtrack is also from this nighttime nature scene, a sometimes melody sometimes cacophony of crickets, sacadas (sp), and 5 species of frogs. The low end of this sound is tweaked in order to add a droning bass of creapiness. Its beautifully unsettling. I'm also giving away about 35 copies of an ambient mix-cd. The cd's are screenprinted and the brown-bag cases and inserts are linoleum cut prints. I'll try to make it available to download. Anyone know how to upload an mp3? or a zip file?

Email me if you want a copy.

Repost from Steve Nyktus
"Cole Pierce has been giving away mixed cd's since 2004. He collects music, burns a mix, decorates a case, and leaves small stacks in public.
There's something about creating a mix cd that is intensely personal, even romantic. It's the kind of thing a person usually does for a close friend, family member, or significant other. That someone would do this on a public scale is curious. In the moment when the mixed album is given away, something personal is shared. Taste is perhaps one of the most intimate ways to identify someone and giving someone a collection like this is a way of revealing that hidden identity. A person might be attracted to the idea of a free cd, but the opportunity to take home a piece of a stranger's life may be more compelling. Yet this is also a very anonymous gift. There is no special thread that pre-exists before the cd is given, or taken. It's still a curiousity as to whether the free mixed cd creates this bond or only further emphasizes its absence."