SLOW BELL SOUNDSCAPES
Slow Bell by Barry Stone
Galveston Arts Center
Brown Foundation Gallery
November 14, 2024 to February 1, 2025.
This page provides free links to the soundscape made for the show and the book. The tracks here differ from the pieces heard in the space, as those were created with silences to allow for an element of surprise for visitors and create a soundspace permeable to ambient sounds occurring in the gallery.
All guitar recordings were improvised on Galveston Beach. A wide range of field recordings—birds, cruise ship horns, and even cows in trailers—were also captured in Galveston. These sounds were later combined with the original guitar improvisations, along with lap steel, piano, and bass synth, to create dynamic and immersive compositions.
The tracks are available on Bandcamp and as a limited-edition cassette featuring Riso-printed J-cards.
The book was printed by Rising Tide Projects based in Galveston
The book can be purchased through Folding Table Book Co-op via Metalable
The exhibition features nine large and medium scale photographic prints along with two digital frames encompassing the four walls of the Brown Foundation Gallery. The visual pieces are accompanied by an intermittent soundscape played on two visible speakers placed in opposing corners. Along with these original works, I included two photographs from my mom’s collection who passed away last May. One shows her as a five-year-old laughing lakeside while sitting on a car trunk, the other she took while posing as a press photographer, showing Billie Jean King exiting the famous "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match versus Bobby Riggs at the Astrodome on September 20, 1973.
Mom loved Galveston and this work is a tribute to the place and her memory.
This page provides free links to the soundscape made for the show and the book. The tracks here differ from the pieces heard in the space, as those were created with silences to allow for an element of surprise for visitors and create a soundspace permeable to ambient sounds occurring in the gallery.
All guitar recordings were improvised on Galveston Beach. A wide range of field recordings—birds, cruise ship horns, and even cows in trailers—were also captured in Galveston. These sounds were later combined with the original guitar improvisations, along with lap steel, piano, and bass synth, to create dynamic and immersive compositions.
The tracks are available on Bandcamp and as a limited-edition cassette featuring Riso-printed J-cards.
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THE BOOK
SLOW BELL the book is an unbound 8.5x11, 16-page, 4-color Riso printed piece held together by a bellyband. The pages are printed as posters of all the original images in the exhibition. When folded together the images collide in surprising ways only to resolve once the book is disassembled. The code of many of the digital images has been scrambled to create generative glitches.The book was printed by Rising Tide Projects based in Galveston
The book can be purchased through Folding Table Book Co-op via Metalable
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THE EXHIBITION
The term Slow Bell refers to the signal "1 bell, ahead slow" used in a ship's engine order telegraph system, indicating a slow speed for the engine. It can also refer to a bell rung slowly at a funeral to signify sorrow and commemorate a death, a practice known as tolling.The exhibition features nine large and medium scale photographic prints along with two digital frames encompassing the four walls of the Brown Foundation Gallery. The visual pieces are accompanied by an intermittent soundscape played on two visible speakers placed in opposing corners. Along with these original works, I included two photographs from my mom’s collection who passed away last May. One shows her as a five-year-old laughing lakeside while sitting on a car trunk, the other she took while posing as a press photographer, showing Billie Jean King exiting the famous "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match versus Bobby Riggs at the Astrodome on September 20, 1973.
Mom loved Galveston and this work is a tribute to the place and her memory.
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ABOUT PSO
Porch Swing Orchestra is an art project begun by Barry Stone that explores the interplay between still images and sound.Photographs and musical improvisations build a framework for deep listening and visual contemplation. Barry Stone plays acoustic guitar with a Fahey-inspired picking style mixed in with electronic effects, like My Bloody Valentine for a campfire. The sounds of the outside—bird calls, stray conversations, passing cars—become part of the music.
Stone scrambles the code and layers images taken on-site to produce new imaginaries. We discover fresh ways to see and hear everything.
Since 2018, PSO has collaborated with dozens of musicians, artists, poets, writers, and activists to publish over 240 unique combinations of images and sounds.
Most PSO pieces are made on Stone’s front porch in Austin, Texas, but PSO has traveled to Spiral Jetty in Utah, the border town of Del Rio, Texas, Maine, the San Juan Islands, and performes live in unconventional venues such as the James Turrell Skyspace, The Color Inside as a part of The University of Texas Landmarks Songs in the Skyspace Program.
Each new piece displaces the last and is not archived on the site. Never miss a piece or performance by signing up for our FREE NEWSLETTER below.
To experience selected past pieces, listen to the PSO RADIO, or tune into our PODCAST, or stream us on SPOTIFY in the links below.
Releases can be purchased on BANDCAMP or at BARRYSTONE.COM
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