Series of sound studies using the live coding software Sonic Pi with voice, found natural objects, field recordings and/or synths. Videos are screengrabs from Sonic Pi.
Sound Studies in Sonic Pi
A Brief and True Report
Seven-channel sound installation created for Pump House Park, Richmond, VA
A Brief and True Report is a 7-channel sound installation created for the small quarry in Richmond’s historic Pump House Park. Speakers placed in the site’s natural amphitheater emit chromatic vocal lines and hammering sounds, evoking a simultaneously idyllic and unsettling atmosphere. To create these sounds, the artist recorded her own voice and the bridge in Pump House Park.
Woven into the musical piece are words from Thomas Hariot’s A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, a 1588 English manuscript which advertised the plentiful “merchantable commodities” and consumable natural resources of the New World, some of which are now endangered. This pamphlet was both an eyewitness account by a scientist and explorer and a marketing tool which played a significant role in the early English colonization of North America. Some of the words were written by Hariot in Carolina Algonquian, a Native American language which is now extinct.
Bouchard’s sound work evokes two landscapes that no longer exist: the Edenic vision of Virginia from early European contact and the chunk of earth and stone that was removed from this quarry. In focusing on lost landscapes and lost languages, Bouchard’s work critiques the deep-seated history and ongoing practice of the overconsumption of American land and resources and the resulting displacement of peoples.
A Brief and True Report was presented in April 2018 as part of the Sound Arts Richmond festival.
Songscape Performances
Series of performances with voice, found natural objects and electronics.
Songscapes are semi-improvised compositions exploring language, ecological networks and locational listening, informed by solo walks in the urban wilds of Richmond, VA. Through live sampling and manipulation of sound in a 4-channel surround format, the artist creates immersive song environments which reimagine the local landscape and reveal moments of personal ritual in the midst of global climate shifts.
Urban Plant Research
Collaboration with artist Leslie Kuo. Digitally printed booklet. 5 3/4" x 4".
Urban Plant Research is a collaborative project with Berlin-based artist Leslie Kuo, dedicated to investigating plants in cities around the world. A collaborative booklet Ein Lichtenberger Herbarium was published by Lichtenberg Studios in Berlin, Germany in 2014. It features hi-res scans of wild plants the two artists collected and pressed during walks in the Berlin neighborhood of Lichtenberg. Each specimen was paired with a snippet of text in German and English regarding the plant's potential use.