Autolite Car Horn Series, #1
A series of sound sculptures utilizing repurposed 1940’s/50’s car horns to house field recordings and other sonic narratives. When I first saw this horn in a junk shop in Chicago I was immediately struck by how much it looked like the architecture of the inner ear. It also looked like some kind of protean brass instrument. When I put it to my ear it reflected sound much like the folds of a sea shell. That’s what gave me the idea to use it as a sound vehicle. The particularly strange acoustic properties of these horns dictated that I use transducers to turn the sound files into vibrations in order to excite their innate mechanical amplification. #1 houses a montage of recordings made from inside cars in celebrations and exotic as well as mundane places. It also contains the sounds of its making.
