This immersive, site-specific installation commemorates pioneer daredevil aviator Charles K. (“Charlie”) Hamilton making the first round trip flight between New York City and Philadelphia on June 13, 1910, taking off from and returning to Governors Island. My installation works with the themes of air, flying, floating, rubber, inflatables and simple motorized devices, scanning the horizon for Hamilton’s long forgotten victory. The installation features inflated latex balloons in various sound capacities, including resonators, strings, reeds and ASMR stimulators.
LOCATION: New Waves in Art and Tech exhibition
Harvestworks Art and Technology Program Building 10a, Nolan Park Governors Island
All events are free.
Artist Opening Saturday May 18, 2024 from 2 – 4:30 pm with a performance by Mónica de la Torre and Hans Tammen at 2:30 pm.
Open to the public from 11 am to 5 pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and by appointment.
This immersive, site-specific installation commemorates pioneer daredevil aviator Charles K.
(“Charlie”) Hamilton making the first round trip flight between New York City and Philadelphia
on June 13, 1910, taking off from and returning to Governors Island. A major media event at the
time, a special train followed Hamilton’s progress as he used the railroad tracks between
Philadelphia and New York City for his flight path. Thousands of people watched from below.
The New York Times reported that a cheering crowd of over 500 people met him upon his return
to Governors Island. His first words upon landing, spoken to a New York Times reporter, were
“Let me get these rubber tubes off me” as he had worn a bundle of inflated bicycle inner tubes in
case he crashed into the water. (Hamilton was, in the words of the U.S. Centennial of Flight
Commission, “known for his dangerous dives, spectacular crashes, extensive reconstructive
surgeries.” Hamilton survived more than 60 crashes.)
The installation works with the themes of air, flying, floating, rubber, inflatables and simple
motorized devices, scanning the horizon for Hamilton’s long forgotten victory. The installation
features inflated latex balloons in various sound capacities, including resonators, strings, reeds
and ASMR stimulators. The pieces are specifically designed to fit the acoustics, light,
architecture and other surroundings and circumstances inside the rooms of Building 10A in
which they are situated.
Featured works will include:
Floating
Located both in the hidden inner stairwell and the pantry room, this immersive installation uses
donut-shaped latex balloons to naturally amplify the low frequencies made by motors hidden in
the center. An invisible circular pattern of sound intensity creates a sound hole in the room,
reflecting the visual image. No speakers or external sound sources are used.
Balloon tapestry with the sound of its own making (tribute to Robert Morris)
The artist will sit in the pantry room for 15-20 minute intervals, at least 3-4 times per day and
weave a tapestry created with inflated long “twister” balloons (such as are used for creating
“balloon animals”). The sound of the balloon weaving will be gently amplified, so that the focus
is on the sound rather than the tapestry — a sound which elicits a low grade euphoria in some
people (ASMR). The sound of the making of the tapestry, along with any ancillary sounds, will
be recorded. When the activity is not happening, the tapestry, in its ongoing state, will be
displayed in the room and the recording will be played back over headphones, both as a
documentation of the ongoing process. As the twister balloons will gradually deflate over the
course of a few days or weeks and the recordings will gradually accumulate, the form of the
piece will change over time.
Unbearable Lightness
Two long balloons float on the air currents of a fan “propeller,” functioning as soft bell-like
shakers, performing a hypnotic dance of chance movement, sound and light.
Judy Dunaway’s Latex Experience
Video with balloon-music soundtrack hosted online. QR Code available at site so that the piece
may be viewed by cellphone.
BIO
Judy Dunaway is primarily known for her numerous works for latex balloons as sound producers, including sculptural sonic performances, sound installations, interactive pieces and acousmatic works. She has presented these works throughout North America and Europe at many important venues, festivals, museums and galleries including the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Alternative Museum (NYC), Audio Art Festival 2016 (Krakow), Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), Cafe Oto (London), Bang on a Can Festival (NYC), Everson Art Museum (Syracuse), Expo’74 at Mass MoCA, Frau Musica Nova (Germany), the Guelph Jazz Festival (Canada), Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors (NYC), the New Museum of Contemporary Art (NYC), Performance Space 122 (NYC), Podewil (Berlin), Roulette (NYC), the Roy and Edna Disney Center (Los Angeles), Seltsame Musik Festival (Austria) and STEIM (Netherlands).
Her awards/grants/residencies include Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, iii Instrument Inventors Initiative (Netherlands), Elektronmusikstudion Stockholm, New York State Music Fund, the Aaron Copland Fund Recording Grant, the American Composers Forum’s Composers Commissioning Fund, Zentrum fuer Kunst und Medientechnologie and the National. Endowment for the Arts performance fund. Additionally, she received a Harvestworks Artist-in- Residence in 1997 and a Harvestworks Workspace Residency in 2017. She has a Ph.D. from Stony Brook University and an M.A. from Wesleyan University (where she studied with Alvin Lucier). She has been teaching at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston since 2005.
PRESS QUOTES
Although it is a household object that is associated with childhood and celebrations, Dunaway’s
works for balloon rarely expounds on such quotidian functions. Her practice challenges these
assumptions, compelling audiences to wonder how such a mundane object can engender such
complex sounds and meanings….Instead of presenting a narrative, many of Dunaway’s works
strive to create a sense of space…In a context that features ambient rather than rhetorical
material, these micro-components of sound become of primary interest to the listener. Thus, in
addition to transferring listening capacities to other areas of the body, this physical approach to
music-making slightly shifts the focus on what audiences should listen for. – Tonia Ko, “Acts of
Envelopment: Implications of Touch in Judy Dunaway’s Works for Balloons” from “A Portfolio
of Two Essays” by Tonia Chi Wing Ko, Doctoral Dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: 2017.
The embodied relationship that Dunaway has developed with the balloon over the past decades
resulted in an artistic practice extremely tuned to the sonic proprieties of every inch of the latex
balloon. – Carlo Patrão, Sounding Out!, April 22, 2019
https://soundstudiesblog.com/2019/04/22/play-against-levity-experimental-music-and-the-latex-
balloon-part-two/
Dunaway is utterly fearless in her approach to her craft, and unflinching in the face of inevitable
backlash from both her classical and avant-garde contemporaries… Her Etudes No. 1 and 2 for
Balloon and Violin (2004) are particular favorites of mine, perhaps because they are what my
own stuffy classical violin instructor would undoubtedly have dismissed as good musicians
behaving unforgivably. – Meredith Yayanos, Coilhouse Magazine, October 2007
(Review of “Mother of Balloon Music” CD on Innova Records).
INTERVIEWS
Cross Pollination S02 E02 Podcast: Judy & Rafaele – New Instruments, Dead Zones &
Decomposition (2022) Interview with “iii – instrument inventors initiative” resident artists Judy
Dunaway and Rafaele Andrade by Chetana Pai.
https://instrumentinventors.org/post/crosspollination-s02-e02-judy-rafaele-new-instruments-
dead-zones-decomposition/
RADIO WEB MACBA (Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art) posted 1/29/2018
Interview with Judy Dunaway by Anna Ramos from July 2017.
https://rwm.macba.cat/en/sonia/sonia-252-judy-dunaway
WEBSITE
http://www.judydunaway.com/
About the New Waves in Art and Tech exhibition. Programmed for the Harvestworks Art and Technology Program on Governors Island this group show that opens the season with studies in human perception via artworks that explore privacy, brain-computer interfaces, climate and fungal networks, Artificial Intelligence and themes of air, flying and floating. Selected by the Harvestworks arts committee, the works use creative technology such as audio spatialization, stochastic audio, gesture and biotech interfaces and simple motorized devices.
