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Episode Synopses

Track List	low compression	high compression
1. Orientation 3:23
2. Peace and War, Force and Order: Bruno's Meditation on Mt. Vernon 16:08
3. East: East is West 9:26
4. Litany for a Parking Lot at the Edge Between Here and There 7:30
5. North: Life is Monumental 15:00
6. West: Roads to Bosnia 11:00
7. South: Read, Riot, Race, Railroad... Lamenting Loss of Industry 25:00
8. Music for Returning form Places New and Too Familiar 6:25

Directions

Charm City Remix is the first non-linear work in the series The Story of This Place. The Coptic cross of Mt. Vernon Square is a central geographic marker of the four distinct quadrants of the city, with Charles Street marking the East/West divide and Monument offering a break between North and South. The project asks you, the audience, to walk in the field of the characters and offers choices in the four cardinal directions. You should begin with Track 1, which will guide you from the Contemporary Museum to Mt. Vernon Square and follow with Track 2, which asks you to make two clockwise loops around the outer circle of the monument. After Track 2, you may choose to experience the remaining tracks in any order. Track 3 goes to the East. Track 4 is a companion to Track 3 and is a stationery pause for the parking lot at the end of the East Walk. Tracks 5-7 offer options to the North, West, and South. And finally, Track 8, is a contemplative score for whatever route you choose to return to the Contemporary Museum. When you exit the building, you should begin Track 1.

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Contemporary Museum - Kianga Ford

Directions

Track List

1. Orientation 3:00

2. Peace and War, Force and Order: Bruno’s Meditation on Mt. Vernon Square 16:30

3. East: East is West 10:00

4. Litany for a Parking Lot at the Edge Between Here and There 10:30

5. North: Life is Monumental 15:00

6. West: Roads to Bosnia 11:00

7. South: Read, Riot, Race, Railroad …Lamenting Loss of Industry 25:00

8. Music for Returning from Places New and Too Familiar 20:00

About the Project
The Story of This Place is a series of site-specific narratives that offer a portable audio soundtrack that guides the listener through a site with a fictional narrative inspired by real stories of the place’s inhabitants. They are fully realized only when experienced on foot by viewers in the original context, though the recording is also expected to drift through the circuits of personal audio into places far afield from this original view.

Charm City Remix is informed by the stories I encountered in Baltimore during my time in the city. As a city that has produced considerable textual analysis of itself, it has challenged me to be a different kind of observer, a different kind of interlocutor, and a different kind of writer. The final narrative is influenced by the range of elements that make up this contemporary place—from its unique position in the history of American industry and politics, to its uncommon racial demographics and more common strife, to the increasing televisual presence of all of the above by way of David Simon’s The Wire.

The score for the piece invokes Baltimore’s relationship with musical histories from the military drum and fife to Billie Holiday to the contemporary sample-based “Baltimore Club” music. Its complexity reflects the deep talent and broad reach of the work’s collaborating composer, Erik Spangler, who has been a Baltimore resident since 2007.

The first non-linear work in the series, The Story of This Place, this iteration owes its new directions to the great openness of the commissioning museum and its director, Irene Hofmann. I would like to thank all of my collaborators in Baltimore, particularly Ann Everton, without whose insider perspective of the city where she grew up, this city, with all of its demographic and historical complexity, might never have unveiled itself to me.

--Kianga Ford, Baltimore, March 2008

The Artist:

Kianga Ford works primarily with sound and environment. Her installations and site-specific projects like The Story of This Place, are often grounded in narrative and ask questions about the relationship between physical and cultural proximity. In the increasingly considered field of sound art, she has worked collaboratively with a range of international composers from Toronto to Berlin. She has been working on The Story of This Place since 2003 and has completed stories for Los Angeles, North Miami, Bergen, Norway, and Alexandria, Egypt and is currently developing new works for Italy and Turkey. Her work has been shown at venues including The Studio Museum in Harlem, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, The Banff Centre (Alberta, Canada), USF Verftet (Bergen, Norway), The Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, and the 2006 California Biennial at The Orange County Museum of Art.

The Composer:

Erik Spangler (a.k.a. DJ Dubble8) is a composer and electronic musician working within a wide range of listening environments. His compositions have been performed across the United States and internationally from Canada to China, by ensembles including the Atlantic Brass Quintet, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and International Contemporary Ensemble. Recent performances as a turntablist include collaborations with Cornell Symphony Orchestra, Sonic Circus, Ithaca College Percussion Ensemble, and VJ Art Jones. Spangler works regularly with saxophonist Brian Sacawa as the genre-defying duo Hybrid Groove Project. Along with Sacawa,