Olivia Block

Olivia Block Is A Media Artist And Composer. Her Body Of Work Includes Sound Recordings Audio-Visual Installations Performances Sound Design For Cinema And Scores For Orchestra And Chamber Music Concerts. Her Critically Acclaimed Recorded Compositions Include Pure Gaze Mobius Fuse Heave To Karren And Dissolution Combine Field Recordings Chamber Instruments And Electronic Textures. Block Creates Site-Specific Installations And Performances Utilizing Field Recordings And Found Recordings Among Other Sounds. She Also Includes Images From Video And Curated 35mm Slides. Her Work Has Been Profiled In The New York Times NPR's Morning Edition And The Wire Among Many Other Publications. Block's Current Work Reflects Her Interests In Site Specificity Ethnographic Sound Architecture Found/archival Materials From The 1950's-1990's. Block Investigates Themes Related To Memory Human Voice Non-Human Animals And Time. She Is Currently Working On Installations Which Combine Animal Architecture Sound Installation And Landscape Architecture. For Twenty Years Block Has Performed Premiered And Exhibited Her Work Throughout Europe America And Japan In Tours In Festivals And Performance Series Including The Walker Museum Sculpture Garden Incubate Tilburg Festival Del Bosque Germinal Mexico City Sonic Light Amsterdam Kontraste Krems Dissonanze Rome Archipel Geneva Angelica Bologna Sunoni Per Il Popolo Montreal And Many Others. Additionally She Has Presented Work At The ICA London MCA Chicago La Biennale Di Venezia 52nd International Festival Of Contemporary Music The Kitchen NYC ISSUE Project RoomExperimental Intermedia Brooklyn And TIFF Toronto . Block Has Completed Visiting Teaching Residencies And Premiered Works At Mills College Of Music The School Of The Art Institute Of Chicago The Thacher School Flagler College DePauw And The Berklee College Of Music Among Others. Block Has Presented Talks And Workshops At Additional Universities In Film Music Media Arts And Anthropology Departments Including Yale University University Of Chicago Harvard University And Indiana University. Block Has Created Site Specific Sound Installations For Public Spaces And Exhibition Spaces Including The Museum Of Contemporary Art In Chicago Sokolowsko Sanitorium Poland CONTEXT Miami And NY The Jay Pritzker Pavilion In Millennium Park Chicago The Library At Wesleyan University In Connecticut The Lincoln Conservatory Fern Room Chicago And At The “Echoes Through The Mountains” Exhibit At The 2006 Winter Olympics Turin Italy . Block Has Developed A Body Of Partially-Improvised Performances For Inside-Piano With Various Materials Including Metal Pieces And Shards Of Broken Glass. Her Scores For Orchestra And Chamber Instruments Emphasize Timbre And Dynamics. Her Most Recent Orchestral Pieces Include Portions Of "easy Listening" Inspired Music From The 1970's Playing Underneath Recordings Of Room Ventilation White Noise And Commercial Spaces Like Malls. Additional Solo Performances Include Partially Improvised Pieces For Electronics Amplified Objects And Piano That Steve Smith Of The New York Times Described Recently As Having “palpable Sensations Of Volition And Emotional Involvement.” Block Recently Completed A Multi-Speaker Sound Installation Sonambient Pavilion In Chicago's Sprawling Millennium Park Utilizing Sounds From Harry Bertoia's Sonambient Sculptures. In April 2017 Block Was Commissioned By The Rennaisance Society And Lampo To Premiere 132 Ranks For Pipe Organ And Multiple Speaker Array In Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. Olivia Block Is Based In Chicago. read less