Film Screening at KINDL Berlin November 13th

My sound design works are represented in Federico Cuatlcauatl’s films at the KINDL in Berlin on Nov 13th. 

I was one of the recipients of the Fall 2024 Arctic Circle Artist Residency. My goal for this voyage was to capture the authentic sonic essence of the Arctic, moving beyond the artificial portrayal often found in big-budget TV and movie nature documentaries. I wanted to experience the environment as a symphony, listening to as many of the instruments that contribute to the rich cacophony of Arctic sounds as possible. This included recording audio both above and below the water, even drilling into ancient glaciers to attach specialized microphones to capture the inner resonances they hold. Additionally, I utilized a data-collecting buoy developed by the brilliant team at Sofar, known for their work in gathering diverse types of scientific data from the world’s oceans.

Using the data and sounds collected from the glaciers in the western and northern fjords of Svalbard, I plan to transform this information into musical instrumentation and explore ways to modulate the recordings for both sound and video compositions. The aim is to highlight and examine the fragile Arctic ecosystem, which is rapidly changing as the climate warms to unprecedented levels. Witnessing these immense, seemingly stable glaciers crumble into the ocean underscored the earth’s environmental fragility. Through my work, I hope to convey the urgency of this message and use my research to illuminate the impact of climate change on these majestic yet vulnerable landscapes.

(last photo by Sabine Schründer)

IMS Live at Tasmeem VCUArts Qatar 2022 - Set 2 from Erika Tsuchiya & Josh Rodenberg.

RhizomeDC  Fundraiser

I was included on a compilation to raise money for RhizomeDC. Please contribute if you can.

Works from Signal Culture Artist Residency

In a little town called Owego (not Oswego) NY, is a vibrant gem of synthesis. I was lucky enough to attend the Signal Culture Artist Residency for a week with full access to video synthesis equipment that most could only dream of and another large percentile would have no idea what to do with. I processed imagery and audio from the Rasquache Artist Residency that I attended earlier in the summer to create these new works.

Soniverse: Augmented sythesizer, sampler, and site specific sound experience.

With the help from a designer/developer Meredith Brindley, we have been creating an augmented reality application for sound performances and installations. The App will allow users to record samples, create synthesized sounds, manipulate edit and rearrange compositions. The idea is that you can create a soundtrack for a particular area and install that track in geographic locations. You’ll be able to visit tracks in other locations using that app. Prototyping is still commencing and will hopefully be ready for beta testing by winter. stay tuned!

So far 2019 has been a year for collabrative projects. New media artist Amy Youngs designed and built a beautiful augmented reality app for mobile platforms and I created the sound design.

Becoming Biodiversity Intro from Amy Youngs on Vimeo.

From Amy’s site “An augmented reality application that encourages participants to explore and experience local, ecological networks present in an urban park site. Cell phones and headphones are used to experience this artwork, which includes mixed-reality animations and storytelling as an overlay to the actual park. The experience is an embodied one, designed to connect humans empathetically with the biodiversity, symbioses, and unseen worlds in public park spaces.“ read more here

Finding the Time

is a collection of audio and video recordings done at the Mountain Lake Biological Research Station in Albemarle County, VA during an artist residency attendance in the summer of 2018. Joshua Rodenberg was invited to the program to collect field recordings and to collaborate with biological research faculty and students from across the country.

While at the residency the artist created a daily ritual of walking into the vast Appalachian flora, documenting his
excursions electronically through mobile tracking applications, video and audio recordings. The main focus was to capture the energy of the area and strip it
down to it’s bare essences by focusing on residual environmental frequencies and color palettes. With this piece, the artists is abstracting how audio and visuals
are received by condensing them in a short but heighten experiences.

“The piece is a ten minute loop representing my daily ritual of hikes in the morning, afternoon and evening.
The intention is not to sit and see/hear every second but to have a escape from your daily routine of walking from
one point to another. The piece was specifically created for the.
The sounds are frequencies that some believe have healing properties. Each video and speaker has a different soundtrack intended to alleviate stress, anxiety and anger. These sounds are woven together with melodies and are
interlaced in the composition to create a sensation of conscientiousness. The intention is for the viewer to be
transcended to a place that reminds them of a joyous experience they may have had.

Sound track to Coapan En Espera

I released the soundtrack for the experimental documentary Coapan En Espera by New media artist Federico Cuatlacuatl.

Cognizant is a conceptual sonic experience much like a lucid dream connecting similar and unrelated elements in a linear motion. Arise from an ambient surface, grasping on to familiar sounds to echolocate yourself, only to find you are lost in an unfamiliar territory.  The audience is meant to travel along with each track, metaphorically or physically finding their place inside of the journey. By the end of the album hopefully cognizance is discovered in beautiful melodies and jaring textural chaos.
The album is a collection of musical and soundscape compositions utilizing instrumentation, lo-fi and high quality samples. I focus on the imperfections of recordings as much as the crafted rhythms and melodies. Samples are collected from various methods using equipment not always practical or purposeful. I think of sound as a material to be manipulated painstakingly and appreciated in its rudimentary recorded form.

Nathan Tergsteeg