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Bill Fontana
Sound Sculpture with a Sequence of Level Crossings, 1982/1997

In Sound Sculpture with a Sequence of Level Crossings, Bill Fontana creates an acoustical portrait of the Amtrak and Southern Pacific rail lines in Berkeley using recordings made by eight microphones positioned along the tracks.

The train sounds are composed to pass stereophonically through the museum gallery, simulating the auditory phenomena as they might be experienced at the actual site. Viewers are able to construct a spatial map of the original landscape based on the Doppler effects generated by the trains’ movement to and fro.

Artwork Info

Artwork title
Sound Sculpture with a Sequence of Level Crossings
Artist name
Bill Fontana
Date created
1982/1997
Classification
installation
Medium
eight-channel sound sculpture
Dimensions
dimensions variable
Date acquired
1997
Credit
Collection SFMOMA
Accessions Committee Fund purchase in recognition of John R. Lane, Director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1987–1997)
Copyright
© Bill Fontana
Permanent URL
https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/97.426.A-P
Artwork status
Not on view at this time.

Other Works by Bill Fontana

See other works by Bill Fontana

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