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<p class="has-black-color has-white-background-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color has-extra-large-font-size">A door emerges</p>
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<p class="has-black-color has-white-background-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color">Recorded in August, 2023, at the former Buffalo State Hospital in New York, <strong>A door emerges</strong> highlights the resonant frequencies of room 114 in Female Ward H. This 23’ x 37’ room, with large broken windows and layers of peeling yellow paint, is a parlor space where patients would gather communally. <br><br><strong>A door emerges</strong> is part of ‘<a href="https://flowercat.org/sta/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" title="">Sound the Asylum’</a>, which catalogs the aural identity of decaying asylum interiors in 19th century Kirkbride Plan hospitals. Our ambisonic recording process uses only natural sounds in and around the asylum—including summer insects and wind blowing a door closed in a distant room—to reveal the resonant frequencies that would have softly imbued every sound of daily life in these elegant and massive buildings with disturbing histories. <br><br>The innovative and utopian Kirkbride Plan, developed by psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride, created therapeutic environments for the treatment of mental illness, providing unprecedented access to space, natural light and fresh air. Despite promising origins, their demise symbolizes the decay of the American mental health care system. Described as “America’s castles,” 73 Kirkbride Plan hospitals were constructed throughout the United States and Australia, and only 30 or so of these hospitals remain standing today.</p>
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<p class="has-black-color has-white-background-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color">Melissa Grey &amp; David Morneau are composers exploring the nature of sound and the nuance of human perception. Their immersive productions reveal mesmerizing worlds of endlessly evolving sound.<br><br>In March 2023, Grey &amp; Morneau released ‘Always Becoming’—a sparkling tapestry of harp-like guitars and seductive beats—in collaboration with Robert Kirkbride (current spokesperson, founding trustee for PreservationWorks; former Dean, Parsons School of Constructed Environments). In 2022, they designed a soundscape of insect field recordings for the exhibition ‘The Empty S(h)elf’—a project by the artist-curator Angela Grauerholz, in collaboration with designer Réjean Myette, at Occurrence (Montreal, Canada).&nbsp;<br><br>Their previous productions include ‘Dr Diego’—a chiptune disco for bass clarinet (2022), ‘Biophonic Beats’ —a structured improvisation for trombone and benjolin synthesizer (2021), ‘Symbolic Gesture’—electro-baroque and elemental beat patterns (2020), ‘Bourdon’—a drone meditation tuned to a utility frequency (2020), and ‘mem mer mère’—oceanic layers of cello, trombone, and live sound processing, which premiered at the Cultural Center at the Havre de Grace Opera House, Maryland (2019).<br><br>In 2018, Grey &amp; Morneau were the featured subjects of the music documentary series ‘Ao Vivo no Casarão | Lado B’ by Cristina Gagnebin Müller &amp; Yuri Pires Tavares.</p>
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