Sound Work reference: The Clocktower, Institute for Art and Urban Resources, New York City, Dimensions: 10 x 10 x 11 meters. Extant: Fall, 1979
The sound installation was made for a large almost cubical room. The simple relationshios of the space's dimensions produced the syme-trical aural topography shown in the drawing.
The tower of the Clocktower is not as insistent as many such spaces: nevertheless, it does inflect work shown there. In Five Russians (A Tuned Room) Max Neuhaus has made it the very medium of the work. There are four high windows in the tower. In the one to the south Neuhaus hid a speaker that emitted four pitches—two high and two low. These combined in bizarre ways: near the source they had a density that hit the body; elsewhere the effect was much more rare; and there were even nodal spots where the waves seemed to cancel. One felt at once very fine and very inadequate as a register.
Four natural resonanaces of the space were chosen - two low and two high - and activated with a loudspeaker hidden near the ceiling of the room. The two low sounds formed large shapes in the works topography. The two highs generated a matrix of points throughout the room, spaced at the average distance between a persons ears. These were heard as different intermixtures according to the position and size of the listeners head.
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