A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave, common used as burial sites from centuries ago in Scandinavia, the Americans, Europe, and Asian . Each mound is a symbol that something has lived and died. Each mound is a marker and protector of something precious. Emanating from the mounds are whispers from the past, radiant tones of transformation and the echo of memories. Kuffner's tumuli are life sized monuments. They are both iconic and ironic figures melting into their environment with a perverse beauty backed by a visceral sound of polyrhythmic pulsations.

Recent Showing: Songs of Uppsala

Songs of Uppsala is an 8.4 surround sound installation embedded in sculptural mounds made of sod created from a special commission by Artist Wanted for the entrance area to Scope Miami 2010.
Documentation from the showing will be posted soon.
http://tumuli.org

The Sound System Cicada FM is an infinite point, location specific modular sound system, whose name and concept pays homage to the summer emergences of millions of cicada singing in trees. The Sound System Cicada FM is comprised of various low power FM transmitters and a collection of battery, solar and crank powered boom boxes, and transistor radios. Cicada FM broadcasts to the receivers orchestrated into a malleable large-scale sound installation.

In 1996 there was a massive emergence of the 17-year periodical cicadas in upstate New York. From extended listening the ears could be trained to hear the individual sounds of each cicada, while also experiencing the omnipresent sonic waves of their chorus oscillating with the ears locational relationship to the sound. In 1998 Zemi17 started a community based pirate radio station in a loft in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Among the diverse programming, was an hour of psychoacoustic dense minimal tones. The show was designed to encourage listeners to play the tones on portable receivers and car stereos in public places with intention to create localized psycho-acoustic phenomena.

In 2007 at the Lucky Seven summer camp in Chappaqua, New York the Sound System Cicada FM presented an installation called Sonnets for Trees. A 1-watt FM transmitter located in a geodesic dome on the edge of a forest broadcasted live ambient sets of music. Musicians were challenged to create music as if they were whispering in the ears of trees. Receiving their transmission were 15 boom boxes suspended from tree limes. In the past two years The Sound System Cicada FM has also facilitated several silent discos in Prospect Park, the Yard and for the Warper music event.

Currently Under Construction

Currently Under Construction

You can download a pdf here:
http://zemi17.net/WhiteNoiseMusic_Scope2010_web.pdf

Yellowman of the Forest is a four channel video work in 4.2 surround sound conceived by A Taylor Kuffner (Zemi17) with video editing and animation, and technical networking by Jeanne Angel.

The piece was started in the spring of 2003 and shelved for a long time, and then restarted in spring of 2007. It was Performed at Monkeytown in Williamsburg Brooklyn in December 2007 and January 2008.

Abstract:
The Yellowman stands in the forest in a timeless hourglass, a paradox of change and stillness, a string of moments with subjective causality. He is the dance of time, the dance of falling, and the dance of not moving. This is a piece about time, memory and the unknown.

Technical Description:
7 cameras were placed in the forest in a 150 ft diameter circle facing inward with the tape rolling. A movement artist, influenced by the Butoh tradition, with a gestural movement language dances throughout the field of the cameras.

The recorded footage is synced together and an algorithm is applied to take the 7 points of view and distribute them rotating between 4 reels. Each reel is sent to computers that are networked to stream 4 congruently edited video signals to be projected independently by 4 video projectors facing outward to the 4 cardinal positions. The audio is composed live from presorted samples taken from field recordings during the video shooting and from reprocessing the live signal from the camera microphones. The sound is split into 4 independent channels placed in a diamond to the projections square with 2 center bass points making a 4.2 surround sound environment.

Crew:
Concept and Audio: Zemi17
Original footage: A. Taylor Kuffner with thanks for equipment from Luxz, Evelyna Dann, Disney Nasa Borg, Leili Gueranfar, Kathi von Koerber, Emiko Shinozaki, and Christine Howard
Video Editing, Technical networking, Storyline development: Jeanne Angel
Yellowman played by A. Taylor Kuffner

Stereo version of the complete audio composition from the live performance on January 07, 2008
"http://zemi17.net/mp3/yellowman_010608_stereo.mp3