The Witches sound art collective (Eliza Phelan-Harder, Giuliana Funkhouser, Kate Rannells) formed while all were in the Dual Degree Program at San Francisco Art Institute in 2017.
Their aim is to bring to attention the sounds that are hidden, occluded, or destroyed by the humanscape of manufactured sound, with an emphasis upon the language and sounds of trees and forest ecosystems. They are also invested in creating and investigating inclusive sound; sound that can be heard and felt by the hard of hearing, deaf and highly sensitive hearers.
The Witches have exhibited at the Laundry Gallery, the Center for New Music, Diego Rivera Gallery and Fort Mason Pier 2 in San Francisco, CA, as well as the Wall-of-Sound Beach House in Quincy, MA
Resonance, 4-Channel Sound and Haptic Sculpture, 2017
A four-channel soundscape of a ritual being performed within a forest, witnessed solely by the trees and crows. A Cypress bush in the center of the 4-channel array became a haptic tactile sculpture as it vibrated with the bass frequencies of the soundscape. As participants circled the bush and held onto it, they echoed the forest ritual, and were contained within.
“Into the forest we come, to make the sounds that renew our covenant with existence. We make the sounds that hold us to the earth, that hold us in space, that remind us of where we are in the order of things. And the trees reverberate with our sounds and speak back to us, the earth speaks back, the elements speak back. The whole forest vibrates with our sounds resonating together.”
Delay/Decay/Evade/Endure,
4-channel sound installation with haptic seating, parabolic sound array and sculpture, Diego Rivera Gallery, SFAI, 2018
The built soundscape surrounding us all is often unconsidered, resulting in unavoidable sonic cacophony that can be harsh and hostile for many. Even as our ears may be desensitized and deadened to the urgent volume of everything, layers upon layers of sound continuously act upon our bodies. Wrapped within the sounds of San Francisco’s North Beach, the Diego Rivera Gallery is a space of sonic immensity and decay. This is an architectural space where echoes continue long after sounds have ended. To respond, we have built a three-part installation using the gallery’s reverberant qualities to create a space of considered sound, a place to explore sound with agency and space.
The Whispering
Haptic sound installation, Fort Mason Pier 2, 2019
The Whispering is an immersive environment evoking sensations specific to a vast Quaking Aspen forest in Utah known as Pando (Latin for “I spread”) through haptic sound, light and sculptural elements. The 106-acre Aspen forest inspiring this installation is actually a single clonal colony known as “The Whispering Giant,” or “The Trembling Giant,” and is estimated to be 80,000-100,000 years old. Compounded with climate change-induced seasonal extremes, unchecked grazing animals and the feet of human visitors has resulted in fatal damage to new growth produced by this giant. New tree clones haven’t been growing from it for the last 40 years.
The soundscape heard throughout the installation imagines healthy trees - their leaves moving in the wind, flowing sap and nutrients - and the still silence created in the death of the organism to create a visceral experience over time of a flourishing or perishing landscape.
THE WHISPERING GIANT is an audio/video celebration of Earth's most ancient inhabitant - a massive 106 acre 80,000-year-old Quaking Aspen clonal colony in Utah. During the 40 minutes of this audiovisual work, we can hear and see the energy of the forest change from vital plurality when left to itself; the crackles of spring sap in the white-barked trunks, the vast roar of wind in the leaves, the creaks and groans of wood expanding and contracting in the heat and cold. Then the increasingly fractured forest; the hasty popping of thirsty trees, muted by overgrazing.
This is a durational work is best experienced with headphones on, volume high. You can have your eyes open or close them to be bathed in the play of colors.