soundpedro is an annual sound event that addresses sonic intake and aural perception, in combination with other senses. An experimental, experiential event, soundpedro works as a creative lab for both artists and visitor-participants. In addition to on-site events at Angels Gate Cultural Center, works are presented off-site and online.
The season (April-November) is produced by the Long Beach artist group FLOOD, in partnership with Angels Gate Cultural Center (AGCC). AGCC is located on Tongva land atop a rugged bluff overlooking the Port of Los Angeles, Catalina Island, and the Pacific Ocean. During the 1940s the hilltop site was part of the Fort MacArthur military base. It is now a thriving sanctuary for the arts. Each year, soundpedro artists activate, in surprising ways, this unique site–both indoors and out.
Unlike music, sound art is the aural equivalent of cinema, painting, theatre, sculpture, and literature. “Sound art” as a term has been variously dated to 1974, 1979, and 1982. Since then, artists have taken the genre in a variety of directions. Reframing the act of listening, works and performances explore the progression of sound from hearing to experience.
Brandon Bollinger soundpedro2023
soundpedro is a combination of research and serendipity, grit and polish, education and disruption.
HISTORY
In 2013, 100 years after the release of Luigi Russolo’s Futurist manifesto “The Art of Noises,” the Long Beach-based art collective, FLOOD, presented its tenth and last SoundWalk. Just as Russolo’s seminal declaration strove to open new ways of perceiving, FLOOD pursued similar outcomes through SoundWalk, which created a platform to raise awareness of and appreciation for sound art. The event grew to include a mix of local, national, and international artists.
Deciding to expand beyond the aural towards more synaesthetic modes of presentation and perception, FLOOD began planning PUMP, a multi-sensory event held in October of 2017, offering opportunities for cognitive boundaries to dissolve and senses to converge.
With SoundWalk gone, sound artists and art professionals felt a vacuum. They had lost a high-profile event that introduced mainstream communities to sound art, a form often relegated to the margins. In response, Amy Eriksen, Executive Director of AGCC, approached FLOOD with the proposition of starting soundpedro. Angels Gate is fertile ground for this endeavor as studio program artists and musicians have long experimented in the area of sound. In 1998, AGCC studio artist Cindy Bernard organized angels gate dusk which combined experimental improvisation with visual art installations and led to the founding of the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound (SASSAS) in Los Angeles.