Hirsch Library Project, 2014
Multiple site specific sound installations
Hirsch Library, Museum of Fine Arts Houston
Lina Dib presents a soundscape to the Hirsch Library, offering surprising audible moments to the otherwise quiet environment. The theme of nature threads her pieces as sound metaphors. Sounds of the sea and a marina welcome the audience at the entrance, introducing the space as a shore in a sea of noise. Another sound of falling leaves at the periodical section reminds one of the accumulation of magazines throughout time. One of the works features the artist’s own curated text fragments from the library, read by some of the Hirsch Library staff, the artist, and the curator.
Opening night, during a performance by the musical quartet Copying Error (Damon Smith, Sandy Ewen, Ryan Edwards, and Rebecca Novak), Dib will record sounds. She will then embed them in her work as a randomly appearing ghost that travels through the library over the course of the installation.
–Hanna Yoo, curator
Programming software by Navid Navab, navidnavab.net
Core Residency Program commission funded by Eliza Lovett Randall and the children of Eliza Lovett Randall in honor of their mother, and the MFAH Hirsch Library, which is generously endowed through the Estates of Winifred and Maurice Hirsch
Entrance:
Shore in a sea of noise
3min 18sec
Stacks:
The atmosphere is in effect a cosmic recording medium
5min 14sec
Take me for a ride
1min 25sec
Periodicals:
Feuilles
31sec
Randomly appearing sound through the entire library:
It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards: Ghost of the quartet (April 4, 2014)
length undetermined
Alice Pratt Brown garden:
Encyclopédie naturelle
10min 48sec, repeating loop