Reflection

December, 2011

Statement

Ethan Rose's work reflects his interests in old technologies, new sounds, and the restless exploration of musical form. Over the past ten years he has released recordings, scored films, performed internationally, created sound installations, and worked with a variety of collaborators. Drawing from his interests in mystique concrete, chance operations and American minimalism, Ethan creates shifting sound environments that merge the old with the new.

Reflection matches a series of electro-mechanical bells with a set of distinct, corresponding speakers. Each speaker plays back a reversed recording of a bell, and at the exact moment that the recording ends, the actual bell strikes. This temporal manipulation seamlessly shifts the objects' sound between its material presence and its altered reproduction, resulting in a dialogue of apparent transformation. The immediacy of this interaction is heightened by its spatialization, effectively allowing the listener/viewer to gain entry to the exchanged space, between speaker and bell.

Rose's consideration of sound reaches out from the formal mechanics of studio composition to investigate revealed gestures of sonic transformation. This concept draws from the possibilities of the recording studio which he views as a realm of both exacting control and indeterminate discovery - a historically idealized, sonic "non-place" where time and space exist outside the usual constraints of reality. By relocating these spatial and temporal alterations back into an immediate and material presence, Reflection pursues moments of perceived transformation that consider the terrain between present and re-presented auditory experience.

Rose has investigated these ideas in a series of works which include installations of deconstructed musical objects, such as music boxes and player pianos, and most recently, a choral/spatial composition. His interest in automated mechanical instruments is bound up in the visibility of both material and mechanism as it relates to the pre-history of recorded sound. Rather than approaching these objects with a sense of preservation, he work seeks to engage and transform their inherent physicality, through spatial, temporal, and material interventions. This approach encourages a layered array of listening possibilities, all of which originate from re-situating simple, musical gestures out of the hermetically sealed doors of the studio environment and into the fabric of worldly experience.

Bio

Ethan Rose is a sound artist and composer based in Portland, Oregon and Chicago, Illinois. His works manifest in a variety of forms including performance, installation, and recorded composition. Through methods of reduction and repositioning he utilizes methods of interactive composition to explore qualities of materiality, transformation, and perception.

Rose has exhibited and performed domestically and internationally at places such as Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Time-Based Art Festival, Museum of Contemporary Craft, New Genre Festival, Museum of Craft and Design, East/West Project, and the SXSW Music Festival as well as many other venues and gallery spaces throughout the world.

Ethan Rose
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Education
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, M.F.A., Sound, (Expected 2012).
Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR, B.A., Music Composition, 2000.

Discography
2010 Bridge Carols with Laura Gibson: Holocene / Baskaru / Headz, CD.
2009 Oaks: Holocene / Baskaru / Headz, CD.
2007 Spinning Pieces: Locust Music / Headz, CD.
Singing Tower: Locust Music, 3" CD (limited to 40 copies).
2006 Ceiling Songs: Locust Music / Headz, CD, LP.
2004 The Dot and The Lines: Locust Music, 3" CD (limited to 50 copies).
2003 Miniature & Sea: Locust Music, 3" CD (limited to 35 copies).

Exhibitions
2011 Movements, New Genre Festival, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
2010 Placing, Washington State University, Vancouver, WA.
Transference, Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, CA.
Movements, East/West Project, Berlin, Germany.
2009 Transference, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, OR.
Sound for film Northern Sky Circle, Igloo Gallery, Portland, OR.
Movements, Time Based Art Festival, Portland, OR.
Passage, Gallery Homeland, Portland, OR.
Sound for film Northern Sky Circle, Mills Gallery, Boston MA.
Sound for collaborative Installation with Molo Design, Anchorage, AK.
2008 Movements, Amabach and Rice Gallery, Seattle, WA
Player Piano, Tilt Gallery and Performance Space, Portland, OR.
Sound for Rise Video Installation, PDX Contemporary Art, Portland, OR.
2006 Sound for Fall Video Installation, PDX Contemporary Art, Portland, OR.
2005 Sound for Window Video Installation, Istanbul Binelle, Istanbul, Turkey.
Sound for Chroma Dance/Video Performance, Gallery 500, Portland, OR.
2004 Sound for Recollection Installation, Gallery 500, Portland, OR.
Sound for Three Channels Installation, Portland Building, Portland, OR.
2003 Sound for Small Parts Video Installation, Polvo, Chicago, IL.
Sound for Under a Pink Sky Installation, Modern Zoo, Portland, OR.
2002 Sound for Installation Circles Inside.

Film Music
2011 Code Blue, Directed by Urszula Antoniak.
2009 Nothing Personal, Directed by Urszula Antoniak.
2008 Hair, Directed by Jun Seo.
Axioms of a Dishawasher, Directed by Vance Malone.
2007 Paranoid Park, Directed by Gus Van Sant.
Rise, Directed by Ryan Jeffery.
2006 Dream #631, Directed by Chel White.

Selected Live Performance
2010 Between Rooms and Voices, City Hall, Portland, OR.
2009 Younger, Time Based Art Festival, Portland, OR.
Freeze Project, Anchorage, AK.
2008 Time Based Art Festival, Portland, OR.
Vision and Hearing, Portland, OR.
2007 Shibuya O-Nest, Tokyo, Japan.
Independents Festival, New York, NY.
2006 Aurora Picture Show, Houston, TX.
SXSW Music Festival, Austin, TX .

Awards and Residencies
2010 Creative Media and Digital Culture Artist-in-Residence at Washington State University Vancouver.
RACC, Project Grant, Between Rooms and Voices.
2009 Oregon Arts Commission Fellowship.
Freeze Project Honorarium.
Signal Fire Residency
2008 RACC Professional Development Grant.
RACC Project Grant, Player Piano Installation.
2005 RACC Project Grant, Small Sails Multi-Media Performance.
2004 RACC Portland Building Honorarium, Installation Three Channels .
2003 RACC Project Grant, Installation Recollection.
2002 RACC Project Grant, Installation Circles Inside.

Selected Reviews and Articles
2010 Dunham, Noah, "Ethan Rose and Flash Choir." Portland Mercury, December 3.
Stewart, Adam, "Standing Inside Sound." Vancouver Voice, December 1.
Cathy Bowman, "Glass, Sound Combine." San Francisco Examiner, December 8.
Keith Bowers, "See-Through Sounds." SF Weekly, November 22.
2009 Bob Hicks "Pushing the Concept of Craft" The Oregonian, November 30.
Lyra Kilston, "Time Based Art Festival." Frieze, September, 28.
D.K. Row, "Ethan Rose at The Works." The Oregonian, September 5.
Michael Mannheimer, "Movements." Wilamette Week, September 1.
Erin Resso, "Oaks." Seattle Sound, January 23.
2008 Adriana Grant, "Movements." Seattle Weekly, December 25.
Christopher Delaurenti, "Stellar Movements." The Stranger, December 22.
Grant Butler, "TBA 08." Oregonian, September 8.
John Motley, "Player Piano." Portland Mercury, March 20.
2007 Andrew Gaerig, "Ethan Rose, Spinning Pieces." Pitchfork, December 6.
Michael Byrne, "Ethan Rose's Artist Tips." XLR8R, November 9.
2006 Mike Barnes, "Ethan Rose." The Wire, October.
Kelefa Sanneh, "Ethan Rose." New York Times, September 17.