The Pacific Rim is a hotbed of cultural, military, electromagnetic, and seismic activity. Energy Fields: Vibrations of The Pacific examines approaches to vibration, sound, and kinetic energy shared by artists and scientists working in the Pacific region across the 20th century to the present day. An international group of contemporary artists demonstrates the ways energetic waves operate on the senses, and how these often-invisible forces have been considered by artists and scientists. Artworks such as Alba Triana’s sound sculpture Music on a Bound String No. 2 (2015) and David Haines and Joyce Hinterding’s Telepathy (2008)—a single-occupancy anechoic chamber—allow audiences to experience and contemplate their relationship to sound and vibration. Malena Szlam’s film ALTIPLANO creates visual rhythms against a soundscape generated from infrasound (below human hearing) recordings of volcanoes, geysers, and Chilean blue whales. The exhibition will also feature a newly fabricated version of ear(th), an artwork originally constructed in 2004 by the late artist Steve Roden that uses seismic data as a score, prompting electronic arms to strike single xylophone bars that sit aloft an enormous custom-made hollow wood structure. Energy Fields also reflects on the contributions of Indigenous artists and traditional environmental knowledge across four continents connected by the Pacific Ocean.

Energy Fields: Vibrations of The Pacific is dedicated to the memory of Steve Roden.

The Fulcrum Festival (programing in LA) will be October 16-20, 2024 and feature performances by William Basinski, Bethan Kellough, and Ellen Fullman & Theresa Wong.

Energy Fields: Vibrations of The Pacific Higher Education Curricular Resource

Visitor Parking for Guggenheim Gallery and Old Packing House at Chapman University