Sara Dittrich: Score for Room

WPA was pleased to present Score for Room, an experimental music notation by the Baltimore-based artist Sara Dittrich. The multimedia work recalled a range of historical precedents, from Allan Kaprow’s happenings and Alvin Lucier’s sound works, to the notational experiments of such Czech artists as Jan Sagl and Vladimir Havlik.

Dittrich transformed WPA into a participatory performance and composition studio. The entire floor was covered in enlarged staff paper. Along one wall in the otherwise empty gallery was a guitar amplifier. As visitors walked the gallery, the sound of their footsteps was picked up by hidden floor sensors and emitted by the amp, producing a sonic architectural landscape. As Dittrich has written, “These works investigate communal aspects of music creation, and give a renewed awareness of the body to the viewer.” Over time, visitors’ footprints will mark and soil the paper, leaving a written record.

On two occasions, the musician Benjamin Buchanan performed on his toy piano. The first time was during the opening reception, when he interpreted visitors’ movements in relationship to the still largely blank stave paper. During the closing reception, he translated the score underfoot into an audible composition.