composer, designer, coffee drinker, artist, sound mixer, dog person, copywriter, nonprofit board member, workers union organizer, musician, noodle lover, librarian, photographer, hiker,
The Locked Grooves Project
Proposal for Salt Lake City Arts Council
Tier 1 Artist Career Empowerment Grant
Digital demonstration of The Locked Grooves Project
Project Description
The Locked Grooves project consists of multiple turntables playing vinyl records that have been pressed with a series of perpetual loops, known as “locked grooves,” creating a meditative and potentially endless work of sound art. For this proposal, all sounds would be collected either as field recordings of soundscapes in Salt Lake City, voices of our residents, or performances by local musicians.Traditional vinyl records have a single groove that spirals inward to play roughly 20 minutes of sound. Locked grooves, however, are perfectly circular and endlessly repeat a short sound, roughly 1.5 seconds long.
Although the number of turntables and number of locked grooves are variable, this proposal has been developed to involve 12 turntables and a record with 24 loops on each side: side A focused on field recordings; side B on musical sounds.
With 12 turntables, there is the potential to play up to 12 different looping sounds at once, creating harmonies, polyrhythms, and chaos, depending on which loops are being played. It’s also possible for all 12 turntables to play the same loop, creating a powerful unison. In this way, the full installation can be played as an instrument, with a performer selecting different sounds over time, at will, the way a pianoist strikes keys. Turntables are intended to revolve cyclically, so using the technology this way will make optimal use of the medium while simultaneously subverting its original intention.
This public project has two phases: 1. collecting recordings, and 2. performing the finished work. All samples would be original recordings made by the artist and specifically created for this project. I intend to collaborate on the final performances — concepts include teaching other musicians how to play the work on their own, collaborating with musicians using other instruments to improvise with the installation, or working with a dance group to choreograph and dance during a live performance.