Damian Catera's newest sound installation entitled NYC TRANSFORMATION/ deCOMPOSITION GOODBYE SONIC YOUTH (Tin Rain On) will be on exhibit at the Chelsea Art Museum from March 7-27, 2003 as part of A SONIC SELF, an exhibit of sound related art curated by Jolanta Gora Wita. Catera will also perform deCOMPOSITION NYC v.3 for laptop and three radios at the exhibit's Friday March 7 opening @ 6:30pm. The opening reception runs from 5-8pm The Chelsea Art Museum is located at 556 West 22nd Street in NYC. Several other sound and media artists are expected to participate in this exhibit.

NYC TRANSFORMATION/ deCOMPOSITION GOODBYE SONIC YOUTH (Tin Rain On) is a fully automated installation where excerpts of Sonic Youth's song "Rain on Tin" are algorithmically mutated and combined with samples recorded on the streets of NYC. "Rain on Tin" is used with the permission of the band.

According to Catera: "NYC TRANSFORMATION / deCOMPOSITION Goodbye Sonic Youth (Tin Rain On) is a reflection on the city’s rich sonic palette and its aesthetic undercurrents. For this piece, sounds recorded throughout the city, as well as the Sonic Youth piece "Rain on Tin", are sampled and randomly transformed with algorithms that I wrote in the MAX/MSP programming environment. These sound manipulation algorithms reflect my interests in stochastic composition as well as relationships between randomness, order and chaos. This automated process yields a collage-like soundscape, which continuously evolves and re-creates itself in real- time."

"This is the latest in a series of "transformation/ decomposition" pieces where environmental and musical sounds are broken down, combined and algorithmically altered. For HAVANA TRANSFORMATION (2001) street and other sounds recorded during a trip to Havana, Cuba were combined with the music of Son Tropical, a Cuban folk ensemble."

"The decision to appropriate and alter Sonic Youth’s material was an easy one for me. From my vantage point, Sonic Youth has long been inextricably linked to the aural fabric of New York City. Several hallucinogen- drenched road trips from upstate New York to see them during the mid eighties had a profound effect on the formulation of my personal aesthetic. Sonic Youth’s unique dialectic of order and chaos has been very influential on my own."

EVENT DETAILS
about deCOMPOSITION NYC v.1
Chelsea Art Museum Website
Official SONIC YOUTH Website