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Contemporary Arts Center
Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center
for Contemporary Art
44 E. 6th Street,
Cincinnati, OH 45202

513 345 8400

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Tours

Tours

THE ARCHITECTURE OF SOUND, THE EMBODIMENT OF SPACE: GUIDED ARCHITECTURAL JOURNEYS

In June 2022, Zac Greenberg, Phil Cotter, and Stacy Sims, along with musicians Sonya Verma, Daniel Hall, General Neptune, and Audrey Casilla, led the Architecture of Sound Co-LAB. The experience engaged museum staff, families, teens, and the general community in listening to and making music within the spaces of the Contemporary Arts Center. Recordings from those sessions were incorporated into these soundtracks, composed by Zac Greenberg and Phil Cotter and narrated by Stacy Sims.

For the soundscape, Greenberg performed multiple, full spectrum single sine wave impulse response sweeps of different spaces in the CAC. Using the gathered impulse response, or IR sweeps, the team was able to acoustically map sections of the CAC, creating reverb and delay effects, to further explore the sonic possibilities of the space. 

The instruments played during the residency and featured within these soundscapes include shakuhachi, Tibetan bowls, gongs, water, shakers, crystal bowls, chimes and bells, didgeridoo, harmonium, double bass, and guitar. Clarinets, orchestral percussion, and sound design elements were added later. Cotter and Greenberg also recorded percussive hits on the metal stairs of the CAC, which they played as an instrument and incorporated as samples in the compositions.

Explore each of the journeys below:

The Exterior: Zaha's Dream

The Lobby: The Space You're In

The Stairwell: Magnificent Stairs

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