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The resonance produced by this hieratic brass sculpture has both a plastic and a sonic component – Norment underlines by listing the media used in this installation as “brass, sine waves, autonomous feedback system, and archival radio static.” In other words, he uses periodic sound (i.e., sine waves) both as a sculptural material that a sculptor can sculpt like metal or stone, and as a self-generated phenomenon of brass and microphones, similar to tones. a trumpet or saxophone.
The chamber is as much a sculptural installation as it is an active musical instrument, and after a few moments its resounding sharpness takes on an Apollonian dignity. As for the last item, the recorded radio static, I could only faintly hear it as I approached the brass bell. It does provide some resonance, but it seems like an unnecessary addition, especially after reading an explanatory text on Dia’s website that reveals that the source of the static was “community reporting and documentation of social and environmental struggles” from the 60s and 70s. I’m not sure that open political source material is necessary. Because alone, Norment’s resonating and vibrating sound system allows us to experience a fragile interdependence of bodies and environments. Here we are both creators, listeners and disruptors of a sound ecology.
The second gallery is much busier. Norment stuffed it with dozens of wooden planks—“responsibly sourced wood,” Dia informs us, with a scent of Whole Foods care. They run from floor to ceiling, and chocolate brown hues are very close to the gallery’s arched roof. Speakers embedded in the woods play looping recordings of a buzzing chorus, whose low bass notes contrast with the high-frequency sound of the bell room. You can sit or lie down on the boards and feel the song go through your thighs and hips when the chorus is crescendo. But the use of recordings, the slightly milky ah-ah-ah-ahs of the singers, and the sea tints of the planks make this installation more like an example of a musical ecology. What makes rice work more exciting is, constitute one, except sound and space.
Norment was born in 1970 near Washington, D.C., but has lived in Oslo since 2005 – over the past decade it has emerged as the capital of Norway. One of Europe’s most productive art centers. (Most of the new maya comes from the excellent art school Oslo National Academy of Arts, of which Norment is a senior lecturer.) Sonic installations often draw on the natural frequencies of materials, objects, and even entire buildings, including the 2015 Venice Biennale, Where he uses microphones and other converters to turn his Scandinavian pavilion into a continuous tone broadcaster.
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