1999
Contradiction / Dislocation / The Passage Between
Neuhaus distinguishes between a series of works concentrated on "place" and those where "passage" is the determining element. In the former, the sound field, the site is fixed, as in his Times Square, an unmarked block of sound on a pedestrian island in New York City's Times Square from 1977 through 1992.
The "passage" works, on the other hand, are situated in spaces which are longer---a corridor, a bridge---and which imply the physical movement of the listener through space to reach a destination.
These "passage" works, then, imply an active role on the part of the listener, who "sets a piece into motion" so to speak by walking (or passing) through it. It also implies a recognition, on the part of this person, of the changing quality of a particular space. The difference between sound zones in a Neuhaus aural topography, is crucial to an understanding of how sound can construct (and deconstruct) a space.
©MNE