terry dame
Sonic Graphite:
The Catskills Edition

For the fourth year, CAS will celebrate Pride (LGBTQIA+) month with a special month-long installation and performance from the queer identifying and Roscoe-local, Terry Dame on Saturday, June 1st. The sound artist and creative technologist will present an interactive, geographically specific sound installation for the entire month of June in the second-floor River Gallery.

Sonic Graphite: The Catskills Edition is an interactive, geographically specific sound installation created by sound artist and creative technologist Terry Dame. Inspired by the artist’s love of nature, sound and maps, the project involves recording and transforming sound environments from specific geographic areas into creative materials used to build a work of sonic, and visual art. Participants draw on a large wall-mounted paper canvas with sound-triggering graphite bars hanging over the surface. The “sonic pencils” trigger a combination of virtual instruments created using field-recorded sound gathered from the Southern Catskills region, which Dame then digitally manipulates into “playable” sounds and more recognizable traditional musical sounds. As participants draw on the surface, sounds are triggered, and a spontaneous composition is created. Over the course of the installation, a work of visual art will evolve, created by the public, inspired by the sounds of the Catskills. Interaction with Sonic Graphite may be approached from two directions: the drawing may take precedence and inform the sound composition, or the sound palate may dictate and inspire the drawing.

This installation is based on analog current flowing in a closed circuit to trigger digital sound. The current travels through graphite lines, acting as wires, to an Arduino micro-controller, which then converts this analog voltage to serial data that the computer can interpret. Digital sounds stored on the computer are triggered when the computer receives this serial information. These triggered digital sounds are then converted back to analog and sent out through speakers, creating vibrations that our ears pick up and hear as sound. This analog-to-digital conversion emulates how our ears and brain receive signals and interpret sound. The ear receives vibrations in the form of analog sound waves and converts these vibrations to electrical currents, which our brain interprets as sound.

About the Artist

Terry Dame is a creative technologist, sound artist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and educator based in New York and Roscoe. Currently, she creates and performs with interactive sensor-driven musical instruments, sculptures, and installations using found objects and found sounds to explore pathways between creativity, technology, nature, and human habitation. From 1998 to 2012, she led the percussion-based ensemble Electric Junkyard Gamelan. The group toured nationally and internationally, performing original compositions on Dame’s own artist-made instruments built from recycled objects. Dame also has an active career composing for film and dance and is an alumna of the Sundance Institute Composer Lab.

Her work has been presented at prestigious venues internationally, including the Kennedy Center, MoMA, Detroit Institute of Art, International Festival of Recycling Art, International Festival of Arts and Ideas, and Festival Archstoyanie. Dame has received support from HarvestWorks Digital Media Center, Fractured Atlas, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, The Rockefeller Foundation, NYSCA, and Meet the Composer. She holds a BFA in Environmental Planning from the University of Massachusetts and an MFA in Composition and Performance from the California Institute of the Arts. Dame is currently on faculty in the MFA Computer Arts Department at the School of Visual Arts and BFA Media Arts Department at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City.