Simon Fraser University
PORTFOLIO of SELECTED WORKS (11-12 minutes)
I have selected the first four for the application, 
but feel free to explore the others and student works below. Thank you.

1. SleepWalks: Body of Dreams–Excerpts (2016) (3 min.)
TECHNOLOGY: ABLETON LIVE, EEG HEADBANDS/MATLAB (Dr. Todd Anderson), VIDEO PROJECTION
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We spend 1/3rd of our lives sleeping and dreaming, yet scientists still cannot explain why. 

SleepWalks: The Body of Dreams was a NYSCA Community Arts Grant-funded art exhibit and 45-minute multimedia dance performance based on the collaborative dreams of participants of two SleepWalks overnight improvised soundscape performances.  The sounds were to evoke the local waterways and industrial-landscape of Troy, NY for an environmental immersion. This project had its premiere at the Chapel + Cultural Center in Troy, NY in 2016 and a second performance as part of a dance residency at Kaatsbaan International Dance Center in Tivoli, NY in 2018.  SleepWalks has been an active project with musician, Lee Pembleton since 2009. In 2012, we began working with Stanford scientist, Dr. Todd Anderson. In 2015, we began collaborating with Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company. For this project I was art director, co-composer, sound designer, and video designer. Also, an art exhibit of SleepWalks: The Body of Dreams was at Collar Works Gallery in Troy, NY in Spring 2017. www.sleepwalks.org 

Interview with Andrea Williams in Times-Union 2016


2. Troy Waterways Project :: Riverfront Park Soundwalk (2014-ongoing) (30 second clip)
TECHNOLOGY: PROTOOLS, MOBILE MP3 PLUGIN, WEBSITE, PARTICIPANT'S SMARTPHONE & HEADPHONES
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​Riverfront Park Soundwalk is a site-specific, 20-minute artist audio walking tour of Troy, NY's waterways. It is a past, present, and future overview based on sound artist Andrea Williams’ historical and environmental research and interviews with Troy residents and water experts. Musical elements, soundscapes and the actual environment intermingle in this soundwalk that is one of seven destinations that are part of the overall Troy Waterways Project. At the end of the Riverfront Park Soundwalk, participants can share a dialogue together on their personal connection with the river or other local waterways and visions of the future of the Hudson River in Troy (soon to be posted on the project website). http://www.listeninglistening.com/riverfront-park-soundwalk.html
Picture
Nerding out together after the show on how does it work?


3. Leitfarbe at CT::SWaM at Eyebeam Art & Technology, NYC  (2014) and at Roulette, NYC (2014) (2 min 15 second clip)
TECHNOLOGY: Ableton Live (keymapping), MakeyMakey, Electric Paint

​Leitfarbe is an electro-acoustic composition that involves interactive improvisation with the audience. Leitfarbe in German means “primary color” or “guiding color”. For this live sound art performance, the audience is invited to paint on large sheets of paper with black conductive paint– creating a long line that completes an open circuit. Once the painted line is dry and it connects with the floor-triggers, you can then step on the floor-triggers to change the sound samples. You can improvise live to create the immersive soundscape together.

4. Architectural Body (2015)
at MOTEL (3-week) Artist Residency
​Innsbruck, Austria (6 min sound clip)
Technology: Ableton Live, Quad-sound, TVs in sculptures, Raspberry Pi 

The beautiful DIY artist and architect space, MOTEL, located between gorgeous views of the Austrian Alps, was set to become an onramp. I was commissioned to create a sound art piece to activate the entire sprawling space with resonance. I found that putting speakers inside the oil drum trash cans on top of the wooden pallets turned them into giant resonant bells. Bells can be heard all over Innsbruck, including the hillsides as the cows wear bells. I also found that adding water on top of the drums made beautiful cymatic patterns. I also ended up being invited to work with the oldest bell foundry in Austria, Grassmayr Bell Foundry, that we found used to be located where MOTEL was. Grassmayr Bell Foundry let me witness a private casting (and blessing) of the world's largest singing bowl. They also let me borrow several beautiful and very expensive singing bowls for my live performance. I recorded many field recordings from Innsbruck that I projected from the rooftop with some live sounds as well, climbing down the ladder to perform the singing bowl piece and hand out bells to the audience, climbing back up to finish the piece while holding a bell, mimicking the cows/sheep on the hillsides with their bells. I also composed sounds for another artist-in-residence, ludwig technique. His towering sculpture designed from hanging feedback-art TVs and scrap wood found onsite was activated via Raspberry Pi. Also artists Anna Lerchbaumer and Laura Boob created a TV/sound sculpture at another location on-site that was activated as part of the performance.

From the program for the 45-minute show:
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New York sound artist, Andrea Williams, local Innsbruck mixed media artist, ludwig technique, and artists Anna Lerchbaumer and Laura Boob, form a collaborative sound and video performance that activates the unique and temporal site of the Motel, a platform and meeting place for national and international artists, and discrete thinkers from all disciplines. The site is slated for street development by the city of Innsbruck and will be available for traffic only from September 2015. It has gone through several permutations over time, including use by Grassmayr Bell Foundry who is donating instruments for the performance. Food and drinks will be provided by the Motel crew from 6 pm onwards. anna.lerchbaumer
Statement by the artists:
We are building on the mission of Motel: activating the space that is alive with sounds and unique character. The site itself is an architectural body that will resonate and provide a visceral feedback loop to the body of participants. Participants are then invited to improvise with small instruments to find their individual resonance within the outdoor space.
We want to explore the many recursive layers of interaction which occur within the space. Field recordings are used with the intent to activate the imagination, forming personal narratives for the participant. The recorded material reveals the unique architectural acoustics of Motel and also what is common to daily life of Innsbruck, Austria, sounds that may often go unnoticed on a conscious level. 
A temporary sculpture/installation forms a counter-point to the architectural structure of the Motel. Video installations utilizing feedback-loops magnify the movements and vibrations in the space, interacting with participants and the soundwaves.
Not meant for listening to in headphones. These field recordings were created for listening from a rooftop in an outdoor 360 degree world of tall mountains, cows wearing bells, highway, low-flying planes, the rumble of an underground subway, two empty oil drums on wooden pallets, and the resonance of 50-something audience members' heart cavities.  

5. OPTIMO! (2009) first iteration at California College of the Arts and then a better version in (2010) at Mills College in Oakland, CA (but the Mills' video camera was overbooked, and it did not show up when the computer music faculty members were all shaking their hips to the work's wonderful polyrhythms!) 
http://www.listeninglistening.com/video-portfolio.html
TECHNOLOGY: Arduino, MAX/MSP, circuit board, 4 motion sensors, 4 servo motors

​Optimo! is an interactive installation based on the concept of musicianship in Balinese gamelan. In gamelan, all of the instruments belong to the community as a whole and no one person has ownership over any one instrument.  The pieces played are conducted, but the conductor's job is to just moderate the organically unfolding improvisations that take place between the performers.  In this installation, the conductor has been further removed from the composition and has been replaced by programmed electro-mechanical machines, in essence, robots, reacting to human participation and improvisation.
Optimo! is meant to be played by two to four people. One person realizes that he cannot reach all of the four objects by himself to reveal the four rhythms activated by moving one's hands in front of the sensors. The idea is that one person interacting with robots will look gesturally like a robot. However, with more people working together to control the sensors, an interesting rhythm organically develops (via an embedded Max patch), and sometimes serious hip-shaking dancing takes place.  

6. Displaced Love Calls (2010) at Mills College in Oakland, CA
TECHNOLOGY: circuit, jacks, mp3 players, solar panels, 2 AA rechargeable batteries, 4 speakers, speaker wire 

​The first of a potential series of guerrilla sound art installations involving a custom-made kit. This kit contains a solar-recharged battery to drive 4 small sound speakers with sound played from two mini stereo MP3 players (4 were used in this particular installation). The kit can be locked around a large tree or other stationary object. 
Displaced Love Calls is a sound installation in a tree where students like to sit at Mills College. The sounds are recordings of birds from the Amazon rainforest mixed in with a park in NYC and a drone.  As the speaker wires were painted to blend with the tree and the speakers went right into the knots of the tree, it was a very subtle piece for just walking by. However, once one noticed and climbed up and sat on one of the main boughs of the tree, the full quad soundscape was experienced. The sounds played with one's perception of the immediate space, the birds in the nearby trees, and the view of the open field. I would not leave this installation up continuously for more than a couple of days as I believe that it might eventually disrupt the local wildlife for better or for worse. 

7. Oceanic (2007) at SolarOne, NYC
TECHNOLOGY: Cracker Box Amp circuit modified to be powered by diode in series with the motor and battery, inverter and bicycle pedal-powered; contact mic inside drain pipe from highway

I received a grant through Target for the New York Society for Acoustic Ecology to construct an alternative powered Sound Garden for CitySol 2007 at Solar One in Manhattan. Along with curating projects by the NYSAE, I created an installation called Oceanic, that was a contact-miked drain pipe feeding the distorted sounds of the raised highway to an amp that I built that was powered by a found exercise bicycle. The idea was that the cars on the highway above would provide the calming white noise in the drain pipe necessary to block out their own noise and the more noisy traffic sounds below in the street adjacent to the 1.3 acre wildlife preserve at Solar One. The rider faces the ocean, and the sounds coming from the speaker often sounded like ocean waves, or the "sound" of outer space.
​One older couple would come frequent the spot in the mornings during the week of the exhibit. The wife told me that her husband was a retired vet, and exercising on the bicycle with the drone sound improved his well-being. (see picture of husband enjoying his morning routine).   

STUDENT WORK (5-8 minutes)

​Water-witching Instruction Piece, 2017 A. Bartol 3 min willow branch, copper L-rods, and drain plug on chain​

1. Mobile Storytelling Workshop at Santa Fe Art Institute (2017)
TECHNOLOGY: Smartphone, headphones, Audacity, laptops 

​Participants (the public and artists-in-residence at SFAI) spent a minute starting into each others' eyes for 2 minutes, trying to not look away. They then interviewed each other for about 5 minutes each on a time that they spent in or near water, while the story was recorded. Then I gave them a crash course in Audacity, and they either edited their own stories or their partner's with some sound design and instructions for their audience on what gesture or gestures in sequence they are to embody while listening to the piece. The final piece must only be 1-3 minutes long from the original 5 minute story. The piece played here for the exhibit open to the public is by artist, Alana Bartol, who developed her dowsing story with props for the audience. 

2. Mobile Storytelling Workshop in Deep Listening: Creative Collaboration Class at RPI (co-instructor with Professor Stephanie Loveless) (Spring 2017)

​Similar to above, only the undergraduate and graduate students (primarily not art or music majors) had to tell each other's 5 minute stories in 1-2 minutes, not their own story. Also, their projects were presented to the class not to the public. Please take a listen to Xiajun Guo (Tiffany)'s piece and her partner for the exercise, Lex Jiminez. Guo's is to be sitting down imagining that you are in the scene. For Jiminez' piece imagine you are walking through puddles and move around. Also fun is Jonathan Gottwald's piece. Lie comfortably on the ground for his piece. Several projects took the students outside. 

http://www.listeninglistening.com/mobile-storytelling.html




​4. Palo Alto Arts Center (2010-2016) Taught Arts & Engineering, four classes, ages 5-18 

​In one week, students were introduced to various kinetic artists, environmental issues, how to light up LEDs, and how to connect a battery and a motor as basic circuits. They talked about their favorite inventions and why they are their favorite. Then they are asked to create with the motor and battery, art supplies, found materials, and recyclables either 1) Art that asks a question or 2) A design that solves a world problem. It must have a working on/off switch to conserve the battery. Works can be iterations of larger ideas. I encouraged failure as an iteration for learning and innovation.

​Also, I hosted some workshops for all-ages such as the LED Throwie Lanterns at the Super Happy Block Party Hackathon in Palo Alto, CA. I encouraged people to create anti-war and Occupy symbols and toss the throwie lanterns to stick to the metal in the parking garage. Palo Alto's mayor, Yiaway Yeh, got involved and a photo (of him holding the guts of his anti-war lantern) was published in the San Mateo County paper: