Michael Pisaro

History

Michael Pisaro (US) is a guitarist and composer and a long-time member of the Wandelweiser collective. He has often worked with the medium of field recording and has released recordings of several works that use it, including Transparent City (Wandelweiser), Continuum Unbound and Nature Denatured and Found Again (Gravity Wave). His work is regularly performed throughout the US, Europe, South America and Southeast Asia.

Movies

SEA 404

Director

SEA 404 is inspired by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto’s series Seascapes, and French philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s essay The Vanishing Point of Communication. It questions the contemporary condition in which the computer mediates our experience, and parallels Sugimoto’s observation that media has transformed the way we see the world. In this film, the shift from the horizon line to the world of the onlooker is underlined by the sudden entrance of everyday sounds. The soundtrack is made from field recordings taken every morning at the same time and location for thirty consecutive days.

Xenoi

Music

The Greek island of Syros is visited by a series of unexpected guests. Immutable forms, outside of time, aloof observants to human conditions.

Congaree Nomads

Sound Design Assistant

Video to accompany composer Michael Pisaro’s composition Congaree Nomads, which is one disc of a 3-CD set titled Continuum Unbound released on the Gravity Wave label. The piece takes as its basis 24 three-minute recordings made in the Congaree National Park in South Carolina by Michael Pisaro and Greg Stuart along Cedar Creek and the Kingsnake, the Weston Lake and the River trails. It is a “nomadic” series that moves very gradually from the Creek to the Congaree River. Instrumental harmonies made by Pisaro and Stuart overlay the field recordings.