Installations of "MUSIC FOR SOUND-JOINED ROOMS" (1980-2002 ) include works created for the Serralves Museum, Casa de Serralves, Porto, Portugal; Cornerhouse Gallery Manchester, Eng; Galerie Nachst St. Stephan, Vienna, Austria; the Kunsthalle, Basel, Switzerland; Oggi Music Festival, Lugano, Switzerland; Cultural Commune di Roma, Italy; Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis; Kunstmuseum, Bern; DAAD Gallery, Berlin; Capp Street Project, San Francisco; 2lst Century Cultural Information Museum, Tokushima, Japan; Kunsthalle-Krems, Austria; Taktlos Festival, Bern; Dance Theater Building, Avery Center for the Arts, Bard College, Annandale-on Hudson.

In "MUSIC FOR SOUND JOINED ROOMS" and "MINI-SOUND SERIES" I use the architectural features of a building to customize sound, visual, and spatial elements, creating intense and dramatic sound experiences. I produce these works in location-based installations that are built from "structure borne" sound (sound traveling through walls, floors, rooms, corridors) which acousticians distinguish from the "airborne" sound experienced with conventional loudspeaker placements. An entire building or series of rooms provides a stage for the sonic and visual sets of my installations. Immersive aural architectures are constructed, linking the main audience space sonically with adjoining rooms through specially designed multiple loudspeaker configurations, creating the effect that sounds originate from specific locations and heights rather than from the loudspeakers. The idea is to create an atmosphere similar to the drama of entering a cinematic closeup, a form of "sonic theater" in which architecture magnifies the expressive dimensions of the work.

The audience enters the set and walks into the "world" of the story, exploring multi-perceptual viewpoints. As they move through new scenes being created by the "Sound Characters," they discover clues to the story distributed throughout the rooms. Places of "thematic focus" are selected to create the scenes - rooms, corridors, walls, doorways, balconies, stairways. In some episodes sound sweeps through the rooms; in others, chords, and tonalities are intricately joined between the rooms; in still others a particular sound shape is emphasized to animate sonic imaging in a distant room. Together with the architectural staging of projected visual environments, I am able to construct multi-dimensional environment-oriented experiences, anticipating virtual immersion environments. Rooms, walls, and corridors that sing. Architecture especially articulates sonic imaging in "structure borne" sound, magnifying color and spatial presence as the sound shapes interact with the structural characteristics of the rooms before reaching the listener. The rooms themselves become speakers, producing sound which is felt throughout the body as well as heard.

"Music For Sound Joined Rooms" was produced in two especially remarkable architectures, having unique acoustical characteristics: the Kunsthalle-Krems in Austria (1995;) and the 21st Century Cultural Information Museum in Tokushima Japan (1992.) I created distinct sonic worlds that could only be articulated through architecture. The Kunsthalle-Krems Minioritenkirche is a large expansive space that was originally part of a monastery that was built in the 11th century. I produced my work, "A Step Into It, Imagining 1001 Years" in the six areas of the Kunsthalle: the main hall; the altar spaces (one at a high elevation approached by a tall stairway;) the two antechambers adjoining the high altar; and the crypt. A space of expanded seeing and hearing enfolded throughout the Church, linking sonic interactions and visual imaging in six thematic locations. Aural events appeared larger than life; as though many miles away; inside the listener. For "Synaptic Island" which I produced at the 21st Century Cultural Information Museum in Tokushima, I created very discrete placements of sound, emphasizing distinct characteristics in four adjoining rooms. Special layering of sonic imaging was developed; areas of intense sonic pressure; others very ethereal. Staged at specific locations and heights, these sonic areas becametactile in presence, existing as "things in themselves." (See attached: floor plans illustrating the architectural distribution of sound for these works.)

To produce the location-based installations for my major works, intensive acoustic and auditory research in the space is required. Usually a residency of one month is needed for my investigations, depending on the size of the space and the number of rooms. During this period I discover special acoustic features of each room, exploring how they interact sonically with each other, and develop the aural imaging and spatial characteristics of the installation. Creating the detailed sound design is very much like scripting a sonic choreography.