S t u d i o F i v e B e e k m a n

sound and intermedia gallery

Ellen Band

Acoustic Mirage

a Psychoacoustic Sound Installation

Saturdays

2 - 9 PM

February 6 - 27, 1999

Acoustic Mirage is a unique sound environment which dissolves the boundary between aural reality and aural illusion. Moving through a dense soundscape of pink noise brush strokes interlaced with sounds at the threshold of audibility participants confront a perceptual dilemma: "Are they really hearing what they think they are hearing?"

Inspired by real-life incidents, Acoustic Mirage simulates the psychoacoustic experience of hearing auditory illusions within broad-band noise. Like an interactive installation, through selectively focusing on combinations of noises and sounds within the sonic fabric of the installation, listeners can undergo a unique perceptual experience determined by their own interface between sound and physiology as they move through the installation's acoustic web.

This installation was part of the international sound festival SoundCulture96 in the Bay Area, April '96 and has also been presented at the Harwood Gallery, Albuquerque NM, and at Mobius, Boston, MA.

Sound artist and composer, Ellen Band, has been active in the experimental art world since 1973. She produces pieces for performance, installation, and sound sculpture. Her work which focuses on the imagistic, mnemonic, and psychoacoustic properties of sound has been presented in New York, Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and numerous other cities. Her sound installation Acoustic Mirage was part of SoundCulture96 in the San Francisco Bay area. American Composers Forum awarded her a 1997 Composers Commissioning Program grant through the Jerome Foundation to build her sound sculpture Minimally Tough II. This sculpture, for leather jackets and robotics, will be premiered at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1999. She taught sound art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for several years. Ms. Band is the founder and artistic director of Audible Visions, a performance space for experimental music and sound art at Brickbottom Artists' Building in Somerville, Massachusetts.

For more information:

web site: www.ellenband.com

e-mail address: eband@world.std.com