Olivia Block: Susurrations

Experimental Sound Studio is proud to again partner with composer Olivia Block, recipient of the 2020 IAP grant from DCASE to share Susurrations, a living sound installation.

Susurration is a site-specific semi-permenant, biokinetic sound sculpture created from 12 foot-tall grasses, ultimately intended for installation on Northerly Island in 2022. The installation will be ADA compliant and wheelchair accessible.

Olivia Block writes, “I started this project so that I might create an immersive installation out of living, sounding materials, activated by wind, in the peninsula at Northerly Island park in Chicago, which receives a relentless influx of wind from Lake Michigan. I wanted to create a place where visitors could walk into a dream-like enclosure surrounded by tall walls of whooshing grass. My hope is that future iterations of this piece may be installed or planted in additional locations--regionally or globally.My research led me to focus on Miscanthus X Giganteus, a fast growing, non-invasive 12-ft-tall grass ,currently being researched as a sustainable biofuel. I consulted with experts including Mary H. Meyer, Ph.D. at University of Minnesota, and Dr. Steven P. Long at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My sketches and plans have included built structures containing grass, which visitors can walk upon and within. However, as the project continues, the built-structure plans have been eliminated, and my focus is now on including only grass, so that the entire piece is created from living plants.“

Olivia Block is a composer and media artist based in Chicago. Her recorded compositions combine field recordings, chamber instruments and electronic textures, and others. Block creates multimedia installations and performances utilizing field recordings, found sounds from micro cassette tapes, video, and curated 35mm slides.  Block’s current work reflects her interests in site specificity, ethnographic sound, architecture, and found/archival materials from the 1950's-1990's. Block often performs her own solo pieces, utilizing electronically processed amplified objects, found recordings on tapes, and various techniques inside grand pianos. Her studio based compositions are published on And/Oar, Cut, Erstwhile, Glistening Examples, NNA, and Sedimental, among other labels. She has created site specific multi-speaker installations for The Sanitorium in Sokolowsko, Poland, The Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, Chicago, and the Olympics in Turin Italy, among others. She has performed and premiered pieces in festivals throughout America, Europe, Scandinavia, and Japan. Block has been interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition, Wire Magazine, Musicworks Magazine, Blow Up, Chicago Reader, and many additional podcasts, publications and radio programs.

Recent ESS partnerships with Olivia Block have included Sonambient Pavilion, an installation in Pritzker Pavilion inspired by Harry Bertoia's sonambient sculptures.