PopTech : Blog : Feeling sound and listening creatively with Stephen Vitiello

Feeling sound and listening creatively with Stephen Vitiello

Emily Spivack ( Bio / Posts ) | Wednesday, June 15, 2011 UTC

Musician-turned-sound artist Stephen Vitiello poignantly framed his PopTech talk by describing how we hear:

We listen very consciously at times with our ears but we also hear and listen with our bodies. We feel physical vibrations through surfaces as sound vibrates through a space and it activates emotions immediately and it also activates imagination.

Vitiello’s work is about feeling sound and listening creatively. How does sound grow? How does it hit your body? What is its physicality?

Vitiello took us on a sonic tour of some of his projects: a residency at the World Trade Center in 1999, an installation at some brickworks buildings in Sydney, Australia, a Donald Judd listening project in Marfa, TX, and “A Bell for Every Minute,” which is a piece on display now through June 20, 2011 at New York’s High Line.

But to really get a feel for Vitiello’s work, it’s best if you listen to pieces he’s posted on Soundcloud or watch him, enraptured, gathering sound for the abovementioned project in Sydney, in a documentary made by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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