Art prof has innovative sound installation in Fresno

The Fresno Metropolitan Museum has developed Off-Site, a series of contemporary art projects that will be installed in different locations throughout Fresno through June. Off-Site takes contemporary art outside the gallery space and encourages a dialogue between artists, audiences, and neighborhood locations. From March 23 to April 14, Off-Site will feature the work of assistant art professor and sound artist Ed Osborn.

Osborn has composed four site-specific sound compositions that will be broadcast through the loudspeakers at the Fulton Mall walkway in downtown Fresno. The compositions are based on the physical space of the walkway itself—using, for example, the location and shape of fountains, planters, sculptures, loudspeakers, and the curving patterns embedded in the pavement as a framework for the pieces' compositional structure.

The sound pieces will evolve over a four-week period, with each broadcast occurring at the same time each week on Thursdays at 12:15 p.m (with a replay on Fridays at the same time). Listeners are encouraged to return to the walkway weekly to experience the changing compositions as part of the walkways' spatial environment.

After each concert, a file of the piece will be posted on the Fresno Metropolitan Museum's web site, so listeners can hear it again or encounter it for the first time if they missed the concert. In addition, Osborn will invite four local and international sound artists to make their own remixes based on his work. The results will also be showcased on the museum's website.

Osborn has exhibited and performed internationally, most recently at the Klanggalerie, Berlin; Interaccess, Toronto; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco. His sounding artworks take the form of installations, sculptures, radio broadcastings, videos, performances, and public projects.