Kevin Allen – “The sound is inescapably internal sounding.”

And yet we are looking from the outside.

Film-sound artist Kevin T. Allen is intrigued by the territory that straddles ethnography and the avant-garde, disciplines that are both deeply immersed in “the other” and a thick approach to representation.

“Whatever trick it takes for us to listen with intention empowers us to have a dialog with the soundscape and not be simply passive participants. Asynchronicity of sound and image allows you to drift between the senses of seeing and listening.”

Kevin’s recent work locates culture not only in human forms, but also in physical landscapes and material objects. Projects use handmade contact microphones to interrogate the material artifacts of roadside ghost towns in South Dakota, bridges in New York City and other slippery interior-exterior spaces. Samples of his work can be found here.

This audio melding (of Kevin’s concepts, words and raw contact mic recordings) was produced for The WHY Conversations, a Trickhouse guest curation in 2014 by Joan Schuman.