White Sound Down by Jeff Talman :: Gibacht, Loipen Zentrum, Waldmnchen, Germany :: until January 6, 2008 - The sound of snow falling is the sole sound source for this installation, which is available to cross-country skiers in the Bavarian Forest, Germany. The freedom, abandonment and physical exertion of cross-country skiing open the mind to experience that cannot be realized otherwise. White Sound Down seeks to engage this open mental state, which is perhaps comparable to aspects of the “art-aesthetic.”

During a Bavarian snowfall in December 2006 I was amazed at the complexity of the hushed sound events that were occurring. The density of the sound field was impressive, but the three-dimensional, vector-like sense of the hundreds of thousands of infinitesimally small sound trajectories was truly astonishing. The mono recording I made could not capture the dense field of sound but it could capture its frequency content.

White Noise is the equal probability of all sound frequencies occurring at equal amplitude, but this was a permeation of downward motions, an immersive, cascading White Sound both figuratively and literally. Analysis of the snowfall sounds identified primary frequencies, much like an aural DNA of the event. Using digital filters I freed those primary frequencies, amplified them and then created a multi-channel sound field. The installation hopefully expresses a passion for perception, as it comments on the interpretation of perceptual data via the snow sounds we hear. We all know the sound of snow falling. Embedded in this sound are richly evocative, intuitively-enabled springs to meaning and association. Here they are the plastic art material of White Sound Down.