Alison O’Daniel – About the Show – The Gallatin Galleries

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ABOUT THE ARTIST

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The Tuba Thieves

October 14 – November 20, 2020

Woman looking out wuth a foggy woods behind her.

This space of time is organized
We need not fear these silences—

—John Cage, Lecture On Nothing, 1959

For Alison O’Daniel, the rash of tuba thefts from Los Angeles area high school marching bands starting in 2011 seemed notable not so much for what was taken as for the absence it left in the orchestras. O’Daniel’s long-term focus on sound and its omission allowed her to see these crimes as a way to explore “the details of what it means not to have total access to sound.”

The artist began by commissioning Deaf sound artist Christine Sun Kim to compose the soundtrack for The Tuba Thieves. She also commissioned hearing painter and musician Steve Roden and the hearing composer Ethan Frederick Greene to create audio. O’Daniel provided each artist with unique, non-sound references to interpret into musical scores, including: the path a Zamboni makes to lay a fresh sheet of ice; the modernist sculptor Louise Nevelson’s eyelashes; and a fan letter from a physicist to Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. The scores were then used as the basis for the script of The Tuba Thieves.

While cinema is a visual medium, the picture is only one element. For The Tuba Thieves, O’Daniel began instead with sound. The precision of sounds and language, score and silences, all take on significance as the world created becomes a sonic experience that co-exists with the images, sometimes as equals and other times with the sound dominant. The captions often don’t merely relate what the Deaf viewer might not hear, but also challenge the hearing viewer to enter into the work in a new way. As the captions in the movie say, citing the letter to Tarkovsky,

You have to watch this film simply. Watch it as one watches the stars, or the sea. As one admires a landscape. There is no mathematical logic here.

The Tuba Thieves has previously taken various forms in screenings and gallery installations and will eventually be part of a feature film. In this iteration, the scenes included are: the film’s protagonist, Deaf drummer Nyke Prince, listening to a musical performance in a gallery; the final concert at The Deaf Club in San Francisco in June of 1979; the 1952 premiere of John Cage’s 4’33” ; a moving truck with plants that sing and hum; Nyke in a dressing room with a drum kit; a high school marching band playing without a tuba at an away game; a signed story in which spoken language, American Sign Language and text captions combine; and a tour through the landscapes of southern California.

Due to the current pandemic, the visitor to the gallery must experience the exhibition from the sidewalk. When possible, the sound will be transmitted using transducers that convert the windows into speakers. At other times, when events in the adjacent space prohibit that, the sound will be lowered or turned off. While this is a wrinkle, it does create a similar experience as a Deaf viewer might have, thus extending the layers of reading and looking, listening and extrapolation.

The Tuba Thieves doesn’t tell a simple story of the theft of instruments. It explores modes of perception and signification as well as silence and deafness, sound and hearing, and the experiences within and between both. Through rich and complex auditory and visual languages, Alison O’Daniel pushes translation and communication to their limits and creates new paths to meaning and understanding.

The ongoing nature of The Tuba Thieves is also central to the work. As the work develops and transforms, the meanings mutate and shift, being created and recreated. This transmutation of communication, the distance between what is said and how it is heard is the heart of the poetry within the work. The various translations and readings, the absences in comprehension and silences, are not losses but moments of possibility.

—Keith Miller, Curator

THE TUBA THIEVES
Ongoing since 2013
Color, Sound, Captions – HD video, 16mm, VHS
Written and Directed by Alison O’Daniel | Produced by Rachel Nederveld | Based on musical scores by Steve Roden, Christine Sun Kim, Ethan Frederick Greene | Cinematography by Meena Singh and Judy Phu | Starring Nyke Prince, Geovanny Marroquin and many others.

White man wearing glasses and a dark blue suit sits on a piano bench and checks a pocket watch — Still from The Tuba Thieves (Scenes 5, 6, 60: Hearing 4’33”)

White woman with a blonde bob holds the microphone she is singing into — Still from The Tuba Thieves (Scene 22: The Deaf Club)

A group of nicely dressed white people sit in rows in an indoor venue — Still from The Tuba Thieves (Scenes 5, 6, 60: Hearing 4’33”

Close up of green plants indoors — Still from The Tuba Thieves (Scene 55: The Plants are Protected)

Woman wearing all black signs at the camera — Still from The Tuba Thieves

A pair of black heeled boots stand on a wood panel — Still from The Tuba Thieves (Scene 22: The Deaf Club)

A group of people stands in a dark space looking behind the camera — Still from The Tuba Thieves (Scene 22: The Deaf Club)

A collection of plants inside a greenhouse — Still from The Tuba Thieves (Scene 55: The Plants are Protected)

A close up of two plants - one with dark red leaves and one with thin green leaves. — Still from The Tuba Thieves (Scene 55: The Plants are Protected)