Sari Carel:
"Out Of Thin Air"

https://moreart.org/projects/out-of-thin-air/​

 

https://observer.com/2018/06/sari-carels-sound-art-at-city-hall-park-comments-on-nyc-air-quality/​

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​Commissioned by More Art for City Hall park,  "Out of Thin Air" was a sound installation by Brooklyn-based artist Sari Carel, inviting to reflect on the intimacy and enormity of breathing. As the culmination of a series of breathing and sound-recording workshops held at Concord Studios with New Yorkers living with asthma and various breathing conditions, I built a multi-channel soundscape in City Hall Park out of unconventional respiratory sounds; visitors were led blindfolded through the installation to better perceive the nuances of breath. Additional public programming focused on environmental injustice and access to clean air and holistic wellness in New York City.
Out Of Thin Air seeks to highlight the uses and abuses of air, and the shared sphere of air as our rightful and oft neglected commons. By employing the sounds of actual breathing and digital stethoscopes as raw material, this work paints a portrait of the city today using the least visible and least tangible aspect of its residents. The final installation is a meshing together of sound and site into a multi-layered aesthetic experience. 

The piece is comprised of three vignettes with gaps of changing lengths between them. The silence in between is active as much as the parts that are full of sonic action. I hope to encourage the listener to tune into the sonic environment around them in a different way. To linger on the difference between hearing and listening and the effortless beauty and richness of sound.