Tender House Project: Demonstrating the Cultural Activation of Chicago’s Bridgehouses
Experimental Sound Studio presents Ryan Ingebritsen: Compartments
October 17 - November 3, 2019
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 17, 5-7pm
McCormick Bridgehouse and Chicago River Museum
99 Chicago Riverwalk, Chicago, IL 60601
http://www.bridgehousemuseum.org
Compartments is a sonic installation composed by Ryan Ingebritsen and organized by Experimental Sound Studio for the Tender House Project Exhibition at the McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum. This work is part of a larger body of work Ingebritsen that takes inspiration from Chicago’s diverse waterways.
Compartments takes the audience inside of a unique water feature on the Des Plaines River, at the Ryerson Woods Nature Area in Deerfield which eventually flows into the Chicago River. This special place features shallow water that quietly flows over and through a rock bed forming several different "compartments" through which the water flows creating a variety of sonic effects. In this installation, the architecture of the bridge house is used to emulate these sonic compartments, allowing the audience to move through this environment. Re-synthesis of very close up sonic perspectives from each of these compartments helps to emphasize the musical nature the waters persistent flow through each compartment forming a circular oscillation between synthesized and found sound.
BIO
Ryan Ingebritsen is a composer, sound designer, sound artist, electronic musician, and sound engineer whose work aims to enhance the expressive possibilities of sound through modes of interaction and utilize spaces and sound systems as instruments in an ensemble. For more information and updates on Ryan’s latest projects visit http://wcawm.com/site/
Tender House Project works to realize the latent potential of Chicago’s iconic yet overlooked bridgehouses, proposing that this hidden infrastructure is a cultural asset that will breathe needed life into the Chicago River.
In collaboration with Togetherism, a two-month festival of artists groups curated by Public Media Institute, eight Chicago-based groups will creatively activate the Michigan Avenue bridgehouse and surrounding riverwalk areas.
Exhibited work will feature design proposals from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Master of Architecture program and design proposal submitted by the public. The result contributes toward a city-wide strategy of highlighting the Chicago River as a cultural corridor. With 70 bridgehouses spanning 13 miles of the Chicago River and having direct access to 15 neighborhoods, these underutilized buildings will be vital to fostering a connected and culturally celebrated Chicago.
Background:
Tender House Project is led by Mejay Gula, Chicago based civic designer, curator, and lecturer whose work highlights value of forgotten buildings and spaces in the city.
Togetherism examines creative experiments with horizontal, collective art-making and organizing. The series is inspired by (and hopes to inspire) forms of radical, liberating practice where collective creative work rethinks and reforms the ways of living in society. The festival will feature the work of both historical and contemporary groups from Chicago and beyond. Not quite utopian, each group serves variously as a proof of concept, a failure, a new direction to pursue, or an example of why “we” needs to change.
For more information: https://www.tenderhouseproject.com/events
