Found Rhythm

An ongoing project, searching for rhythms in unexpected places.  

As a child, I used to click my teeth when riding in a car passing by objects on the side of the road. One click for every driveway, telephone pole, break in a median, whatever was passing by. Cornfields and farms were the most exciting, their tight lines animating and splaying outwards diagonally, seeming to play out complex syncopations of light.    

Years ago I attempted a different kind of recording and counting, where I tried to capture polyrhythms of radio tower lights blinking in close proximity to one and another. I fit a lens cap for a hobby telescope with a photodiode wired to an XLR jack, and with a field recorder in one hand and telescope in the other, I'd point the telescope at clusters of blinking lights in an attempt to record their rhythms as electrical impulses. It worked to some extent, but the signals were often too weak as the lights I was attempting to capture were always too far away.  

This is an ongoing work exploring the rhythms in the lights around us. An experiment in alternative field recording and notation, and an attempt to blur the lines between what we see and what we hear, and what we hear and what we see.    

Early Explorations

What do these sound like?