Patrick Tighe, with composer Ken Ueno
On view through March 13
Out of Memory, by Los Angeles-based artist Patrick Tighe, together with renowned composer Ken Ueno and fabricator Machineous, is on view in the SCI-Arc Gallery between February 4–March 13, 2011. Tighe’s installation, accompanied by a site-specific composition by Ueno, offers an experience at the convergence of sound, material, light, form and technology. Its soundscape is integral to the experience and used to explore the spatialization of sound within the physical boundaries of the SCI-Arc Gallery.
In Tighe’s exhibition, memory is used as a vehicle to inform the work. The familiar is the impetus from which the project originates. Unlike the majority of Tighe’s work that is concerned with the practical issues aligned with constructing a building, the SCI-Arc installation constructs an experience imbued with symbolism and meaning. The normal negotiations present in a building project are absent here. Out of Memory is described as unabashedly self-invented in pursuit of an answer without a real question.
The fabrication of this installation proposes a new structural materiality through the use of renewable polyurethane foam that is used as a total building assembly to shape the installation’s structure, envelope and acoustical barrier. Layers of closed cell foam (used structurally) and open cell foam (used acoustically) are combined to make up the wall assembly, while the pure geometry of the parabola provides a natural self-structural form. The interior surface of the parabolic structure is a three-dimensional representation of Ueno’s composition. Realized through Machineous’ on site, six-axis robotic milling, the sonic contours are derived from the sound contained within. A spectrogram of the composition serves as a source from which a mapping of frequency is translated into points and vectors. This provides a framework for the digitally modeled three-dimensional surface. The data is then used to robotically carve the interior surface of the volume.
Ueno’s musical composition is integral to the experience and provides an ever-changing mobile performance with custom software designed specifically for the installation. Experientially, difference is investigated through a series of counterpoints found in the contrasting chambers. The spiraling geometry and acoustically absorptive material magnify the spatial and the aural. Notions of memory are confronted. Traces of the ambient combine with visions of the past, present and future, as one’s awareness is heightened and perceptions are altered.
Out of Memory aspires to transcend the personal pursuit from which it originated. The conclusion is not the conclusion. The act of making is the conclusion and it is the memory of that act that is eclipsed within the residual. The remnant remains, in the gallery, as evidence of the pursuit.
About Patrick Tighe
Patrick Tighe, AIA, FAAR is Principal and lead designer of Patrick Tighe Architecture. He founded his firm on the belief that architecture has the capacity to help shape one’s experience in and of this world, going beyond one’s immediate surroundings, to the experience of the larger context. It is through this experience that perceptions are altered, building types are re-evaluated and new ways of building and seeing are provided. His built projects, big or small, public or private, for the rich or for the poor, aim to engage the public in a meaningful way and leave a lasting impression.
Recently completed work includes the Sierra Bonita Mixed-use Affordable Housing project in West Hollywood and the Moving Picture Company in Santa Monica, the latter a recipient of the 2011 National AIA Award. The firm recently won a competition for a new mixed-use building on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles. Buildings have been realized nationwide and projects are now in development in Morocco and the Middle East.
In 2007, Tighe was awarded the Mercedes T. Bass Rome Prize in Architecture. The previous year, he was recipient of the AIA Young Architect and the 40 under 40 awards. Tighe is a Fellow of the American Academy and The MacDowell Colony. His work has received numerous awards including six National AIA Honor Awards, American Architecture Awards, a Progressive Architecture Award, Los Angeles Architecture Awards, several Best of Year awards as well as other local AIA honors.
The work of Patrick Tighe Architecture has been published extensively in architectural press, including Architect, Architectural Record, Architectural Digest, The Los Angeles Times, Interior Design, Form and Newsweek. It is also featured in architectural book compilations including The Power of Pro Bono (2010) and the latest edition of The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture.
About Ken Ueno
Composer and vocalist Ken Ueno, recipient of the Rome and Berlin Prizes, is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in extended techniques, including overtones, multiphonics, extreme extended registers and circular breathing.
Ensembles and performers who have played Ueno’s music include Kim Kashkashian and Robyn Schulkowsky, Mayumi Miyata, Teodoro Anzellotti, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Nieuw Ensemble and Frances-Marie Uitti. His music has been performed at such venues as the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MusikTriennale Köln Festival, the Muziekgebouw, the Hopkins Center, Spoleto USA, Steim, and at the Norfolk Music Festival, where he was guest composer and lecturer. Ueno’s piece for the Hilliard Ensemble, Shiroi Ishi, continues to be featured in their repertoire, recently being performed at Queen Elizabeth Hall in England, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and aired on Italian national radio RAI 3. His Pharmakon piece was performed dozens of times nationally by Eighth Blackbird during their 2001-2003 seasons.
As a vocalist, Ueno has collaborated in improvisations with Joey Baron, Robyn Schulkowsky, Joan Jeanrenaud, Pascal Contet, and David Wessel among others, and has ongoing performance collaborations with Tim Feeney, Matt Ingalls and Du Yun. A former ski patrol and West Point cadet, Ueno holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University. A portrait CD including three of his orchestral concertos was released on the Bmop/sound label.
Southern California Institute of Architecture
960 East 3rd Street
Los Angeles, California 90013
For more information visit www.sciard.edu or call 213.613.2200