Sari Carel:
"Out Of Thin Air"

Client:
More Art / Artist: Sari Carel

Project Title:
Out of Thin Air

Role(s):
Sound Library Designer, Audio Recordist, Immersive Soundscape Composer, Technical Integrator, On-Site Installation Repair

Stats / Impact:
🔊 8-channel + 2-sub immersive audio installation
🏙️ Installed outdoors at NYC City Hall Park for 6 weeks
📰 Featured in The New York Times, Observer, and More Art’s public art archive
💥 Repaired on-site after vandalism to ensure full exhibition run

Links:
🔗 More Art Project Page | 📰 NY Times Coverage | 📰 Observer Article

Behind the Work:
Commissioned by More Art and conceived by artist Sari Carel, Out of Thin Air was a public sound installation exploring the intimacy, politics, and poetics of breath. I was brought on to create a custom sound library and immersive audio experience using recordings of Alexander breathing sessions, field recordings, digital stethoscope captures, and samples from medical test dummies—all recorded and reproduced at 96k/24bit for full dynamic fidelity. The result was a weatherproof 8.2-channel audio experience installed in NYC’s City Hall Park, programmed to activate daily from 10am to 6pm.

Visitors were led blindfolded through the space to attune to the subtle differences between hearing and listening. The piece’s pacing—three sonic vignettes interspersed with gaps of silence—invited reflection on air as both personal and collective, urgent and ephemeral. Despite a midnight act of vandalism that severed the speaker wiring, I arrived on-site at dawn to make field repairs, ensuring the final days of the installation continued uninterrupted.

This project was as much about sound as it was about care: for the body, for the environment, and for the unseen forces that connect us all.