May 13, 2018


Presented No Longer Empty and the Queens Museum as part of Mel Chin: All Over the Place, Soundtrack is a new work of collaborative sound art initiated by Chin with project curator Jace Clayton (aka DJ /rupture).

Listen here!

Five local artists, including L’Rain, DJ Aaron, DJ Ushka and Atropolis, and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe will transform field recordings from the routes of the 1, 5, 7, E and F trains into compositions that bridge the mechanical and the human. From Eastchester in the Bronx to Brooklyn’s Coney Island, from the far West Side of Manhattan to Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the commissioned works will use the sounds of the city transit,recordings and their interpretations capture more than sounds of the city, they weave its ethos and creative potential into one of the most practical elements of daily life, the commute. The commissioned works will be woven into a single mix the length of the average NYC subway commute. The mix will also feature novelists Jennifer Marie Brissett and Eugene Lim reading from their works, and musings of local novelists and writers.

Enlisting recordings from above and below ground, Chin, Clayton, and the collaborating DJs seek to reveal the distinct personalities of a ride through the city and the complex diversity of New York neighborhoods. Into these sounds the words of writers including Jennifer Marie Brissett, Eugene Lim, Chin, and Clayton, with be intermingled, augmenting the sound works with the words of the city. A single mix containing each composed track will be made available to the public via the Queens Museum website, and can be downloaded anywhere. To continue the spirit of experimentation inherent in Soundtrack, field recordings will also be available for the public to use in their own mixes under the Creative Commons License. This aspect of the project offers an opportunity for commuters to creatively consider every clack, rush of oncoming air, squeal and swoosh, door-closing announcement, and overheard conversation, perhaps even transforming the raw sounds into their own creative output. For Soundtrack, the subway map becomes a sound palette, and commuters, potential creators.

Mel Chin: All Over the Place is made possible in part by lead support from the Henry Luce Foundation and Ford Foundation. Major support is provided by Sarah Arison, Suzanne Deal Booth, Agnes Gund, The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, Ann and James Harithas, Ellen and Bill Taubman, The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston, Annette Blum, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo and the Dorothea Leonhardt Fund at the Communities Foundation of Texas, Inc., Matthew Cushing, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Thomas Pascal Will Robinson, and two anonymous donors. Additional support is provided by Fairfax Dorn and Marc Glimcher, and Ursula von Rydingsvard

Exhibitions at the Queens Museum receive significant support from Ford Foundation and the Charina Endowment Fund. Major funding for the Queens Museum is generously provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, Lambent Foundation, Booth Ferris Foundation, and the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc.