January 07, 2006

Museum of Science - Boston, MA

WHEN: Saturday, January 7th, 1-5 PM
WHERE: Museum of Science - Boston, MA - in the Current Science and Technology Center in the Blue Wing

WHAT: The Museum of Science in Boston has asked me to participate in their Current Science and Technology ongoing series of presentations. I will be set up in the central foyer area of the Main Exhibition Hall (Blue Wing) for the afternoon, collecting voices and explaining my process to those interested. I will be interviewed for one of their podcasts as well which will be released during the following week.

A producer for Weekend America - a public radio program that airs nationally every weekend - will also be there documenting the event for a piece to be broadcast later in January. The piece will include audio from this event and others as well as music that I write using the voices I collected at the events.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Summary:

Number of voices recorded: 53
Reading sheets used: 16
Weather: cold, but bright and sunny. was nice to be inside, but in a big, open space nonetheless.
Level of success: probably the highest yet.
Records broken: number of people recorded - apparently the MoS averages about 5-6000 visitors a day on the weekends. It felt like I talked to every single one of them.
Photos: Check them out

This event seemed to be on a new level. Perhaps I have crossed some threshold. I say this not necessarily because of the results, as I have not yet been able to dive into those fully yet, but because of the experience of the event itself. It was very crowded and the level of interest in what I was doing was higher than anything I had experienced before.

I wanted to have an event at the MoS because of the fact that people go there expecting to have new experiences and more importantly, expecting to interact and participate with other people and with exhibits. This puts everyone in the perfect mindset for participating in Bring Your Own Voice. I had a line of sorts for most of the day and felt bad that some people didn't have enough time to wait until their turn. It felt very nice to not have to sell the idea quite as much as usual; there was buying going on all over the place. I really didn't have to do much more than explain what I was doing to get people eager to enter the booth.

It was also really fun being interviewed for the Current Science and Technology podcast as well as having the opportunity to speak briefly to the crowd as part of the CS&T presentations that afternoon. The Weekend America producer documented the event with her own recording equipment, and I have lots of confidence that she will put together something compelling and will do whatever she can to make me seem interesting and cool!

The Museum of Science is one of the most revered institutions in Boston, I think, and is a hugely popular destination for locals as well as visitors from around the globe. I think that it is a great thing for such an institution to go out of its way to support and involve me, a local musician, in their activities. It shows a commitment to the local arts community and a willingness to experiment with new and relatively unknown projects - two rare qualities in such venerable institutions. I have had experiences with other large institutions (which will remain nameless) - ones that were actually much more obviously suited to a BYOV event - but they were, nonetheless, dramatically less helpful and interested. We are lucky to have the MoS.

HUGE thanks to René for a very long day of tireless (and food-less!) help - how did a nice girl like you get involved with something like this, anyway? Also, Carole and Adam and everyone else at the Museum of Science for agreeing to host such an unusual event and for being so helpful and accommodating throughout the process. Thanks!

As usual, click below to access some representative audio clips:

do the Spoon Dance (all weekend long)

I'm a really good singer, mister!!!

the dawn of Saturday

best best best friends

diggin' the hole deep

permeation

ouch

self-censorship

mom vs dad

college students lie

once upon a time...

does your boss know?

umm, what was that?!

Posted by halsey at January 7, 2006 04:31 PM
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