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Sounding the Depths
Breaking through in the mid-century and pioneered by modern designer Harry Bertoia, the way-out world of sound sculpture and sound art is booming today.
A featured article in CA Modern Magazine- Summer Issue 2011 -
The California Report
KQED Public Radio
June 2009
An interview featuring Tamara Albaitis with her current work: 'Convey (your truth)' by California Report, produced by KQED (public radio in California.)
Chinese Cultural Center and Kearny Street Workshop: Present Tense Biennial
May 2009
Vibrant, political, poetic, and challenging,the Present Tense Biennial, coordinated by the Chinese Cultural Center and the Kearny Street Workshop, speaks volumes about contemporary Asian/American identity. Curated by Kevin B. Chen with Abby Chen and Ellen Oh, this exhibition assembles work by thirty-one artists from the bay area and abroad in response to contemporary Chinese Culture. After viewing several bay area exhibitions of work by native Chinese artists (major shows at SFMOMA and BAMPFA), I was pleased to behold an Asian American response to the challenges of identity and shifiting political currents as it relates to cultural heritage at the Present Tense Biennial.
...Tamara Albaitis adds a sonic dimension to Cui Fei's dialogue on language through her interactive installation consisting of two hanging grids of speakers--each mini-speaker emitting an element of speech (a vowel, a consonant, a dipthong). Not only does the grid format allude to the way we attempt to structure our thoughts through language and the lined formatting of written compositions, it also (through the collective, babel-esque sounds of this piece) deconstructs the conventions and notions of power attached to language/speech...
- Marisa Nakasone, San Francisco Examiner
crusher.com by Phillip Crush – urban commentator
'Don't try this at home' Intersection for the Arts
October 2007
This show turned out to be very good. The dogs by Lauren Davies were much more cooler than the earlier photo I uploaded. Also the sound sculptures by Tamara Albaitis were really impressive but I didn't get any good photos. She manages to make wire and speakers seem organic and the audio loops are haunting. It's won't say the show as a whole was mind-blowing but it was original and the artists were all strong and distinct. Intersection for the Arts is a sweet space by the way.
Upcoming Events – yahoo.com - Recent work by Tamara Albaitis
May 2006
BOCA is pleased to present recent work by San Francisco’s Tamara Albaitis from May 10 through June 10, 2006. The opening reception for the artist will be on Thursday, May 10th from 6pm-10pm. Albaitis sound installations are inspired by daily rituals, routines and her personal observations of the pervasive effects of audio-visual synchronization on everyday life - “the technological mediation of experience” a concept that philosopher Paul Virilio describes as the “sonorization of everything.” Albaitis’ minimalist approach begins with her employment of the most rudimentary materials for sound - raw speakers and audio wires, which become sculptural components for each work. The materials reference the entry into a world of replicated realities. Unlike the majority of contemporary visual artists, hers begins with sound and the mechanical properties of amplified audio in order to articulate a visualization of the sonic form itself, which can then be experienced site-specifically. With deliberate use of the floors and ceilings within the space, as with sound molecules, the black wires turn into what the artist describes as “three-dimensional drawings” within mid-air. Her works free the mechanics of sound from its representative qualities into another space, which draws the observer into a new mode of audio/visual perception.
In Albaitis’s work, the speakers themselves, emanating everyday, unnoticed sonic happenings, start to embrace a vast amount of implications, metaphors, and language. She addresses issues concerning the way technology re-structures our personal and public space. Whereas technological advances inevitably progress to become more efficient, faster, and more user friendly, Albaitis, in opposition, has chosen the simplest structure of sound reproduction in order to provoke a feeling of primordially while at the same time reminding us of the deafening effect of the explosion of everything audio/visual in our daily lives.
- Tracy Blitz – Art Critic – San Francisco
artbusiness.com
May 2006
Tamara Albaitis states that she is investigating "Acousmatics - when we rupture the representational characteristics of sound and delve deeper into the sensations and personal meanings of sounds." Fine. We've got a premise. The remainder of the explanatory is a cacophonous cascade of marginally intelligible generalities, so let's skip that and go straight to the art. Her installations consist of speaker groups and wires, assembled and arranged not only to transmit sounds of ordinary everyday life, but also with attention to their visual appearance, exclusive of the sounds they emanate. Bottom line for me -- you don't have to understand it to appreciate it.
- Alan Bamberger - art consultant, advisor, author, and independent appraiser
Pulse of the Two Cities
June 2005 issue
Now that winter is behind us, the Soap Factory, which closes its poorly heated warehouse during the cold season, has re-opened. The first exhibition of the season, Gigantic, embraces the Soap’s distinctive interior with pieces hanging from the high ceilings, videos projected inside tucked-away rooms and one piece lowering the ceiling, making it necessary to crouch and scuttle to get to the other gallery spaces. The intention of the show is to “expand our understanding of the role of size and proportion in our lives.”
The experience of being human is odd enough from the traditional perspective of our everyday lives, but inhabiting one’s body in the manner depicted by Tamara Albaitis’ piece “Out and In: A Sonic Study of Space” is both disturbing and amusing. The viewer steps into a vertical tunnel and is encapsulated by red fabric that cascades from the ceiling. Inside, loud belching, chewing and sneezing block out all other sound while a bright, hot lamp sheds a surreal light on the tight space. Perhaps the most alarming of all the pieces exhibited in Gigantic, Albaitis’ installation casts a spell that is slow to subside.
The Soap Factory’s unusually large gallery space is the perfect home for a show of such magnitude. Gigantic is a feast of the bizarre and the sensual. When things that were once ignorable are no longer so, the effect is at times unsettling, at times captivating. Gigantic abundantly captures both feelings.- Natasha Walter