2022 desert fellow at the blue sky center
/ invited to make work in residency for three weeks in rural cuyama, california
work produced:
improvised community sound collage
“self portrait” / 36” mixed media collage
during her time in residency, vanessa explored the mediums of sound and visual collage, with an emphasis on improvised expression. a sound collage, similar to a visual collage, is a combination of seemingly random sounds and clips arranged in a chaotic fashion to create a sonic landscape. the foundation of the sound collage was created by vanessa during jardines victoria annual community garlic planting where she made improvised ambient synth sounds which were recorded to a cassette tape. this cassette tape was then brought to the community peddler’s fair where students from the community were encouraged to add their own contribution to the sound collage using a drum machine, a microphone, a synth, phone audio clips, or a microphone. all the parts were recorded on the spot using an analogue 4-track cassette recorder. the final piece was mixed live and captured digitally in one 30-minute performance.
photographs by arna behar