FUNHOUSE                            

TEEN SOUND ART

JULY 2024, DONKEY MILL ART CENTER

Over the course of two weeks, Sound Art teen students engaged the theme of Kīpuka at the scale of the world and universe. Inspired by techniques like Deep Listening which ask us to intentionally kilo (observe) and record our sonic environment, as well as histories of Hawaiian mele and experimental electronic music. From capturing and manipulating field recordings, wielding virtual instruments, making “sonic life maps”, and converting photos and poems into sound files, our students have demonstrated an openness to crafting emotional acoustic landscapes, soundtracking science fiction, and turning noise into meaning.

Featured in the Imagining Kīpuka: Young Artist Exhibition, on view July 12 - August 3, 2024.




Students used music software to create sound art projects that use a variety of methods to meet self-directed goals. Inspired by the theme of Kīpuka at the scale of the world and universe, projects cover a broad spectrum – from storytelling to soundscapes to emotional abstraction.

Anela - Kipuka Sound Art
The first portion of my sound piece introduces an array of seemingly unconnected sounds that gradually crescendo into harmony as haunting vocals arise as a connector and equalizer. This is inspired by the idea of Kipuka from a world-view, showcasing a universal peace that can be found in the quiet, breath-taking beauty of nature.

As the music progresses, the mystic vocals slowly fade from view as a fast-paced beat emerges, transitioning the listener from images of serene mountains to evoking the image of city-life, reenvisioning Kipuka from a community/societal view.

In the third portion of the soundscape, the music deteriorates into stormy notes of piano, before gradually transitioning back into the haunting vocals that arose in the initial section of the piece, drawing the listener back to the start, where everything began.

Kenzo - Black Space Duet
00:00-1:11 represents the emptiness and stillness of space.
1:11-1:59 is the stability of a star imploding suddenly as its core falls out of balance.
1:59-2:08 is the black hole that came from the star forming.
2:08-3:55 is the black hole consuming the space around it for millennia.
3:55-4:31 is the black hole’s last moments as it finally gets erased by Hawking radiation.

Koa - WOE Abyss Be Upon Ye
My song explores the theme of Kipuka at a cosmic scale, with it being nearly silent by the end, the chaos in the middle, and the unease at the beginning. In order to create this piece, I had to use a program called 'Typatone' as well as digital drums. Our group went into a different room and screamed for the screams heard in my piece, and I took the sounds of a blackhole from a youtube video with the website 'YTMP4'. This song is supposed to make the listener feel unease and maybe even chills by the end.

Mahea - Calm
My piece explores Kipuka in Hawaii with a calm field recording of birds and roosters here at the Donkey Mill. I used a sampled audio file to make it feel like you're at the ocean with only nature surrounding you, then I added in a soft piano I recorded, accompanied by short samples of violin. I also put in a sample of a conch shell, though it kind of sounds like a ship's horn which I also quite like.

About 2⁄3's of the way in all sounds seem too quiet to make way for the immense noise of time warping and falling into itself only to end abruptly and go back on a peaceful course. It sounds almost as if you’ve been violently awoken from an afternoon nap. I wanted my piece to make my listeners feel soothed and sleepy, but I felt it was a little repetitive so I added in a black hole sample layered and filtered over itself to get that warping sound effect.

Oland - Cycle
The first 30 seconds begins with sounds of birds which were taken here on campus. Leading into that comes a subtle guitar written and recorded by me. Followed by a simple bass I composed and a drum machine. Further into the song there are sounds of fire and water. I added these for our major theme of Kipuka. A Kipuka is a piece of land that has been surrounded by lava. Due to the height of the land all the plants and animals are preserved making its advanced ecosystem which has evolved for millions of years. At the end we hear fire yet again showing the cycle begin again.

Stella - Cosmo
In my piece I am exploring kipuka through the sounds of birds which I recorded here at the Donkey Mill as a “world” point of view of kipuka. I also used the sounds of a black hole which represent Kipuka as a universe. I started off my project with some piano because I wanted to make the listener feel calm, but I also wanted a variety of different rhythms - sometimes upbeat, calm, mysterious, sad, hopeful. I also used virtual drums because I wanted the listener to feel more happy and upbeat.

I also included screams that we recorded ourselves as a group. My piece is supposed to make the listener feel sad but also hope.



SIGHT AND SOUND: CREATING WITH DOWNTOWN HILO

2024, EAST HAWAI’I CULTURAL CENTER

Hosted by the Youth Arts Series at East Hawai’i Cultural Center, co-created with Andrzej Kramarz. Over 2 weeks, we worked with East Hawai’i ‘ōpio to explore psychogeography, place-based art, and observation in downtown Hilo as methods for students to explore creativity in a community-rooted way, linking past, present, and future. Students worked between digital photography and sound art, each medium informing the other to produce each studentʻs own narrative of place. What did downtown Hilo sound and look like before human settlers, during the 1946 tsunami, in alternate personal timelines, in post-apocalyptic futures?



EVAN - "The Past and Present of Hilo"
I recorded and composed several sounds that I have taken throughout Downtown Hilo into this audio piece, using looping ukulele, a custom drum beat, bird chirps and calls (especially from the invasive Common Myna,) a part of a song called “Heat Wave”, and clips of news reports on tsunamis, all put together with the use of reverb and effects. I was exploring the theme of the past and present, representing the before and after of some of the tsunamis that had hit Hilo before, and a bit of climate change. My goal was for the listener to take away information from this piece about what the moods were for the two time periods.

MICAH - Untitled Project (128)
In this piece, I wanted to create 3 distinct feels of Downtown Hilo, being that of the past, the present and the future. To do this, I sampled various noises, both from Youtube and Downtown itself. I used the Joe Hisaishi piece "A Town With An Ocean View" as a leitmotif, or a repeated musical theme throughout the larger project to show Hilo's overall stability, even through change. The first minute showcases my idea of what the soundscape of Downtown Hilo could have been like throughout the past, while the second's ambience is actually captured from the area surrounding the Singing Bridge, which had acted as a focal point for the entire project. The third minute shows my idea of the soundscape of a brighter future for Hilo, with a strong portion of that being a reduced reliance on cars, and a focus on biking, which I showed through the ambience being mostly made up of bike noises, and ocean waves. I used the uneasy feeling spectrograms, pictures adapted into sound, can create to represent the general malaise of both the past and our time, but I omitted it in the third part to show that, in this future, we may not have these sorts of problems anymore. The title of the piece is in reference to how I still feel the piece has some ways to go, and how I tend to make a lot of projects in that vein, half-finished and abandoned.

BERGAMOT - nostalgia for a alternate reality
My project was about my nostalgia for the past and what my life would be like in an alternate timeline in which I had never moved away from Hilo. My project is in three effective parts: the past when I lived in Hilo categorized by the sounds of coqui frogs and an instrumental of a song that represents how I felt at that time. The second part is how I imagine life would be like in the alternate reality in which I had never moved to Volcano, which I tried to create the feeling of the fact that it's an alternate reality through a constantly slightly shifting volume level. The main sound effects that I used to try to form the reality that I imagine were the chattering of voices, the sounds of cars and the calls of various different birds common to downtown Hilo and an instrumental of a song that I chose because when I was looking up the video of it, the top comment was “this reminds me of friends that I never had” which was sort of the entire concept that I was going for for this section. The third part which represents the present of this reality was created by various sounds that remind me of Volcano (trees rustling, kalij birdcalls etc.) and a instrumental of a song that although it is a happy song, as I am happy with the reality I am currently in, to me it also feels wistful for the past and all the things that have never happened.

KAHUA
I've split up my sound art project into three separate pieces, each connected to different groups of pictures I took of Downtown Hilo.

to sleep, then, I must go, for the music to start.

The first track features rhythmic sounds of leaking pipes, footsteps on concrete, and metal pipes falling, with layered field recordings from Mālama Market of birds and people talking in different languages. I tried to incorporate the sounds of Hilo at night; a busy, yet peaceful, yet slightly eerie space, for those who don't like walking through town at night.

1. Downtown Hilo: Present Day
2. Objective: peace, underlying chaos, slightly disconcerting
3. Sound art techniques: sampling, field recordings, voice recording

St. Joseph's Church

The second track evokes images of the St. Joseph Church. I've always looked at that building and thought about how many people must have sat in there-- how many weddings it's held, how many funerals, and whatever else people do at churches. I wonder if they have a choir, and a big organ behind the podium, but I've never gone inside. I know there are families of stray cats who nest below the main hall, and under the stairs, but I don't know whether or not they pay attention to the sermons. The piece I wrote is kind of what I imagine it sounds like.

1. Exploring Downtown Hilo: present day, but looking on the past with curiosity and wonder. 2. Objective: to convey the feeling of wanting to look in people's windows.
3. Sound art techniques: virtual instruments, AI text-to-speech, field recordings

Chicken Pigeon Remix

The third track is probably the silliest and most whimsical-- it's made up of sampled field recordings of chickens and pigeons I found on the street. That's it.
1. Hilo: present day, but only for birds
2. Objective: funny birds
3. Sound art techniques: sampled recordings of birds