M. Kimo Friese

soundscapes On-site & Online June 7th

Temples of Rishikesh / Children of Mussoorie (Hare Krishna)
This project is part of a 2023 series of ambient sound recordings captured throughout the Himalayan region of India. The sound piece reflects meditative cacophonies heard outside many of the temples along the Ganges River in Rishikesh, India. Layered upon these tracks are the conversations of street children, recorded in the hill town of Mussoorie who, because of their caste in life (they are Dalits, or “untouchables”), are not allowed in these temples. Any sounds resembling “music” is in fact an invocation of the Lord Krishna and an homage to the “Land of Shiva.” The repetition of children’s voices add a sense of duality to the essence of non-duality innate in the chanting (the Mahā-mantra, or the chanting of “Hare Krishna”).

earmaginations On-site & Online June 7th

A Mirrored Harbor of the Mind
This project stems from numerous video and photography series captured between 2002-2022, documenting the waterfront of the Port of Los Angeles, as well as avant-garde visual shorts for social and other media. This Earmagination was created as both an homage to the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti – the title being a play on his long poem, “A Coney Island of the Mind,” (the text in this this video is a portion of a line from his poem), as well as a psychoactive journey through the “harbor of our minds.” The visuals provided are meant to evoke the line from Ferlinghetti’s poem, wherein both the eye of the poet and what the poet sees are not only intrusive and obscene, but are also a meditative visual spectacle, which, like aspects of the natural world, mirrors itself.