Stephen Vitiello:

Slow Planes, Fast Trees

(sound works and documents)

>October 26-December 30, 2007

Working with sounds recorded from Virginia environments, artist Stephen Vitiello has created an exhibition of sound installations, photographs, and a video. Audiences are invited to pay close attention to the simultaneously strange and comforting soundscapes of Virginia. Vitiello also debuts a new work at CAC: Slow Planes, a site-specific sound installation about the sound of jets in Virginia Beach.

Slow Planes is based on field recordings of jets and airplanes from inside and outside of CAC and near the Naval Air Station Oceana. Despite the politically-charged issues of zoning, land development and local economy surrounding the presence of the F18 Hornets, Vitiello’s focus is on the experience and quality of the sounds themselves. “I think there’s (at least) two ways to hear the planes that roar over Virginia Beach," said Vitiello. "One is to hear them as unbearable and intrusive noise. Another is to think of them as an exciting, charged blast of sonic energy.” Vitiello’s enjoyable transformation of the sounds blend with the real-time sounds of jets passing over CAC.

Special thanks to Audio Connection for their support of the exhibition.

CATALOGUE

The exhibition is accompanied by a full-color, comprehensive catalogue of works from Vitiello’s ongoing body of work. It features an essay by independent curator and writer Regine Basha and an interview with the artist by CAC associate curator, Natalie Bray. The catalogue marks a first for Vitiello, and is produced by the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia and in part by an Emerging Fields and Innovative Literature Grant awarded to the artist by Creative Capital and by The Project, New York.  Available for $29.95 in the Museum Shop at CAC.

image: Stephen Vitiello, Slow Planes, 2007. Location image.