April 10–14, 2023
Olive Tjaden Gallery, Tjaden Hall
Cornell University | Ithaca, NY
steady state / transient flow is a sound and performance installation consisting of water-driven sound instruments created by John Eagle. The instruments, connected in one continuous water cycle, create a physical environment which determines the sonic behavior. Using pipes, tubing, valves, rocks, bottles, containers, and electronic sound components, the installation creates a variable water flow. All of the acoustic and electronic sounds are derived from the water flow or actions taken by performers within the system. The dynamics of the system, along with the interventions of performers, create different types of flow over time. Eagle is joined by musicians Emily Call and Ford Fourqurean to perform with the installation throughout the week.
The exhibition is funded in part by the Cornell Council for the Arts and the Cornell Department of Music, with additional support by the Cornell Electroacoustic Music Center. Special thanks to the Cornell Department of Art for presenting this exhibition, as well as Emily Call, Ford Fourqurean, Alan & Kathryn Eagle, Laurel Gilmer, Milo Tantillo, Miles Friday, María Bulla, and Professors Kevin Ernste, Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri, and Ben Piekut.
materials: water, vinyl tubing, PVC pipe, steel/iron pipe & rods, glass jars, valves, plexiglass, aluminum foil, super absorbent polymers, plastic, wood, stones, sticks, pinecones, microphones, speakers, amplifiers, microphone stands, computer/microcomputers, salvaged metal and stone/ceramic tiles
Compositions
transient flows (2020–2022) is a piece developed for hydro-clarinet. It was written for, and developed with, clarinetist Ford Fourqurean. The hydro-clarinet is a system in which both the performer (operator) and physical material are instrumentalized. The performer uses the hydro-clarinet to produce sound while the instrument uses the performer to manage the water flow within the system and keep it within safe and operable thresholds. The system is sufficiently complex, in that the performer cannot control it with any single action and resists becoming embodied by the performer (the way a violin might be become an extension, in a sense, of the body of its performer. Most actions produce imbalances which then require further action to rebalance. In this way, the balance in the system is a dispersed chain of imbalances. The relationship of the performer within the system is largely one of maintenance. These dynamics apply to the entire extended system of the exhibition—actions within an environment and their consequences.
The pieces reservoirs (2022, for two performers), and Transient Flows Intonation (2022/23, for two instrumentalists) explore our ability to listen and respond to our environment in a tuning process which translates environmental sound into harmonic pitches to which performers respond.
In Transient Flows Intonation, the environment is the water system/gallery space as heard through two microphones placed inside the hydro-clarinet system. The piece uses a gradually shrinking time window (how much time elapses before a live microphone generates new pitches) to reveal thresholds between where our actions can amplify environmental harmonies and where they overwhelm them. In reservoirs, the environment is the water system/gallery space as heard through two hydrophones (microphones made for water) placed inside glass jars connected to each other with a siphon. The hydrophones monitor the changing water levels by making periodic recordings and playing back the most prominent frequencies. By manipulating the water levels, the two performers attempt to find sonic relationships between the reservoirs while dealing with time delays in the physical system and those of the monitoring system.
Physical Pieces
While all the instruments and mechanisms are interconnected in one system (using clear vinyl tubing as the primary water channel between pieces), they were developed individually. The pieces are modular—each with at least one input and output—and could be connected in several different ways. Descriptions of each piece are provided by order of their place within the water cycle, beginning with the only electric piece (non-sound related, that is) within the water system—the electric pump:
1. main reservoirs / pump: five connected plastic containers provide enough water storage to keep water pumping constantly (but not enough to store all the water in the system).
2. hydro-clarinet system: a tall network of PVC pipes and valves. A tube splitter controls the ratio of water entering the instrument and that which bypasses it to continue to the rest of the system. Microphones placed inside tubes amplify the internal sound of flowing water. The tubes are telescoping, allowing one to tune different resonances. When played with a clarinet mouthpiece attachment, listeners will hear either the natural sound of the clarinet reed or the sound of a vibrating check valve (internal to the system) caused by air pressure. The instrument’s water output returns to the main reservoir and helps ensure that enough water will be maintained there to keep the pump functioning.
3. reservoirs system: not to be confused with the main reservoirs, these two glass jars provide temporary storage for water in the middle of the system. A siphon controls the flow of water between them, meaning that they both respond to a change in water level in either jar. Microphones feed the sound from inside the water of each jar to a program which selects the loudest frequencies each time it is triggered and plays them back through speakers located below the jars. The second reservoir’s output advances to a siphon system.
4. bell siphon switch: a bell siphon works to allow periodic filling/draining of water by manipulating the water’s exposure to environmental air pressure. This bell siphon (two plastic containers, PVC pipes and valves) is designed to allow two different outputs. One output is located at the same height as where the siphon will engage so that only a small amount of water can flow this way before the water level drops. The second output is the bell siphon’s drain which will carry most of the water. Depending on the incoming water’s flow rate, the bell siphon may only partially engage (creating a prolonged moderate water output), fully engage and then break (a temporarily high water output), or fully engage and not break (a prolonged high water output).
5. watershed system: this piece is constructed with a PVC pipe frame and an aluminum foil surface (walled with plexiglass). It has two inputs. The lower input carries water from the bell siphon drain (the highest water flow) through pipes on the bottom of the structure to the main output. The upper input (coming from the upper output of the bell siphon switch) allows water to flow across the aluminum foil surface before draining at the end into the main output. Super absorbent polymers (small white grains which become enlarged and transparent with water) on the foil’s surface can absorb and change the flow of water. Below the foil’s surface (not visible) are pairs of contact microphones and surface transducers (mics/speakers designed to capture/emit sound through solid objects instead of air). The mics/transducers are connected and can create feedback if the sound signal becomes strong enough. As the water flows across the foil’s surface, it can create contours in the foil which create more contact between the mics/transducers and thus create feedback. As the transducers are in contact with the foil, this feedback physically vibrates the surface of the foil and can alter the flow of water. The main output returns to the main reservoir system where the cycle continues.
Artist Biographies
John Eagle is a composer, instrument builder, and performer. His work operates within ecological frameworks involving extended instrumental systems. These works explore harmonic intonation as an environmental process.
His music has been performed by Tacet(i) Ensemble, Red Desert Ensemble, Brightwork New Music, Wet Ink Ensemble, Yarn/Wire, Unheard-of//Ensemble, Isaura String Quartet, Southland Ensemble, Inverted Space, Dog Star Orchestra, and others.
Eagle has performed and presented work internationally including the Int-Act Festival in Bangkok, Heidi Duckler Dance’s Ebb & Flow festival, UC Irvine’s Art of Performance, Hear Now Music Festival, Thailand New Music and Arts Symposium, Göteborg Art Sounds, Co-Incidence Festival, Live Arts Exchange, and the Dog Star Orchestra festival. He has contributed music, sound design, and technical design to a range of interdisciplinary projects. Sound House, a performance installation developed with Janie Geiser and Cassia Streb, features an eight-channel wireless sound instrument he designed with Eric Heep. He was a lead artist on two collaborative sound films (Sound House and transient flows) presented by Music for Your Inbox in 2022/23. He works with Charles Gaines as co-arranger and musical director for his Manifestos 4, conducting its premier in Times Square in July 2022 and studio recording.
Eagle holds degrees from Bennington College (BA) and California Institute of the Arts (MFA) and is a DMA candidate at Cornell University where he studies with Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri and Kevin Ernste. He was the Composition Fellow at Bennington College from 2009 – 2011 where he taught and directed music for theater and music productions. Based in Los Angeles and New York, Eagle performs in a variety of contexts on French horn and with his own instruments.
Emily Call (she/her) is a violinist based in Los Angeles, CA. As a founding member of the Isaura String Quartet, she has commissioned and premiered works by artists including Kitty Brazelton, Gloria Coates, Carmina Escobar, Ulrich Krieger, and David Rosenboom. Upcoming ISQ releases include the original soundtrack recording for David T. Little’s Black Lodge on Cantaloupe Music and Ulrich Krieger’s noise metal string quartet Up-Tight II.
In addition to her work with ISQ, Emily performs with ensembles including the Dog Star Orchestra, wild Up, Worldless Music, San Diego New Music, and Synchromy. Equally comfortable in the worlds of pop and indie rock, Emily has recorded and performed for artists including Angel Olsen, Baths, Geotic, Michael Bublé, Demi Lovato, Man Man, and more. Emily holds degrees from the California Institute of the Arts and Bennington College.
Ford Fourqurean aims to connect communities through music. He is an award-winning clarinetist, electronic musician, and composer based in New York City. He serves as artistic director and clarinetist of Unheard-of//Ensemble presenting unique multimedia concert experiences around the United States.
Known as “a unique force” (The Clarinet Journal), he has toured across the United States with Unheard-of//Ensemble presenting guest artist performances and talks at Northwestern, Manhattan School of Music, Cornell, and Oberlin with a repertoire of over 100 works written for the ensemble. Ford also performs regularly with ensemble mise-en and subs with Contemporaneous, Little Orchestra Society, Fresh Squeezed Opera, and Curiosity Cabinet. He has also provided electronics/audio support to groups including Mivos Quartet, Talea, and Talujon percussion.
John Eagle 