Steven Speciale is the Instructor of Interdisciplinary Arts at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Michigan. Previously, he taught sound art and music at Loyola High School of Los Angeles where he was also the Choir Director and Music Director for Hannon Theatre.
Artist Location: Interlochen, Michigan
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PARTICIPATION
Steven Speciale (solo)
Obon is a reflection on my Japanese grandparents’ time in the WWII American concentration camps.
Obon is a Japanese Buddhist holiday honoring ancestors who return to earth for a visit- like a Japanese “Dia del los Muertos.” Part of the celebration includes spiritual conveyances called “shoryoma.” One is an eggplant “cow”who lumbers back laden with gifts.I repurposed a japanese lantern as an eggplant shoryoma, simultaneously evoking the akari lamps of Isamu Noguchi, an artist with whom I share a similar mixed ethnic heritage. The lamp is covered with family photos and documents related to travel during the “camp days.” The wall decor and sign are interpretations of my grandparents’ grocery.
The sounds are my transcription of Jiro’s Theme from the 70’s Japanese kid show Kikaida for prepared piano. Tape loops create the rest of the soundscape. Ignorant of my Japaneseness growing up, I learned about much of my culture through TV and through the orientalisms of composers like John Cage.
earmaginations On-site & Online June 7th
At Midnight
Inspired by Gustav Mahler’s song from his Ruckert Lieder of the same name, “At Midnight” is an extension of a project called “Blues-Birds.” “Blues-Birds” were cyanotyped collages celebrating Black musicians. The birds were sampled from Audubon’s famous paintings. Audubon was a slave-owner, and is known more for his beautiful paintings than his virulent racism. Thus the transformed birds become a metaphor for the ways beauty can hide ugliness. Their blue color, realized by sunlight, refers to the Blues. The birds in the movie are animated, projected, and filmed.
Do Not Look Into My Songs
Inspired by Gustav Mahler’s song from his Ruckert Lieder of the same name, the video used AI tools to digitally “rotoscope” stock images of bees and “green screen” them onto musical instruments instead of flowers. The bees were “painted” with ASCII code. The film explores the tension between AI and analog activities in musical vocations. None of the AI is generative; all the footage is stock.
Steven Speciale and his Loyola High School Students
Gallery installation, April 9 – June 4, 2022:
Blues-Birds
A band of bird-projects created by the Loyola High School Music Appreciation students. Steven Speciale, Instructor.
Virtual Breakout During the Outbreak June 6th Livestream
Virtual BreakOut During the OutBreak Videos [VBODOBV] III
Birdsong
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Proposed work as accepted for soundpedro 2020:
Curlew Blues
A tent houses a cyanotype-reimagining of an Esquimaux Curlew painted by John Audubon. This Curlew is now extinct. We recreated the image with “extinct” recording technologies: cyanotype, audio tape, and vinyl records. Student-composed musique concrete compositions made from taped birdsongs play in the background. Hanging inside the tent are resonant found-objects programmed to be mechanically struck recreating actual birdsongs. Our tent is an opportunity to consider human impact upon the natural wonders of the world.
ein Klein blaue Stimme (a little blue voice)
A cyanotype fabric tower displays cyanotype-singers’ faces in the middle of singing a phoneme. Viewers are invited to lift the face to view a font expressing the phoneme. The tower hides a sound system broadcasting student musique concrete compositions about the voices.
The title is a pun; the German adjective “klein” is capitalized as a reference to Yves Klein and as a reference to Mozart’s famous serenade “A Little Night Music.”
Turntable Circus
Presenting 30 Loyola High School Music Appreciation students with their projects.
In the manner of John Cage’s Musicircus, we will install and perform sound art around the theme of records and turntables.
Students will perform abstract turntablism pieces throughout the evening.
Surrounding and defining the performance space will be at least four individually amplified turntables, each with boxes of regular and “prepared records” created by the students. Guests may select a record and play it on a turntable. Record preparations include all manner of physical alterations and even cutting and reassembling discs. The records will be sounding simultaneously. Sonically-reactive projections will accompany the presentations.
Students will lead guests in a performance of Christian Marclay’s “Record Players.” Guests will get two records and be led in all manner of noise-making with the discs culminating in the breaking of the records.
Automaton Bricolage Cogitating is the creation of Steven’s music appreciation classes. After performing a Fluxus piano work where all the keys were nailed down, the students transformed the instrument into a dadaist sculpture challenging the notion of what a piano is. Robotics, interactivity, and musique concrete inform the current incarnation.