HOW TO BUILD THE FUTURE
Sound composition with video 8’49”
premiered at Lyric Center for the Arts (Virginia, MN) Sept 2022
(How to Build the Future can be found on Mine Songs: Sounding an Altered Landscape album)
A pre-war mining inspection film tells stories of hierarchy in gender and race, regional and national priorities, working conditions and methods, social protocol and more.
This piece began with a field recording that captures a train carrying taconite pellets adjusting its position on an elevated ore dock (CN Docks, West Duluth). Using contact microphones to record the resonance of the train through metal, I allowed this recording to dictate the composition: placing myself as composer and and instrumentalist in a supporting role. The aim is to force the ear to question our trained anthropocentric sonic focus on music and human-made instruments.
Composition, field recording / Sara Pajunen
16mm Mining Inspection Tour film, 1936 courtesy Kathryn A. Martin Library Archives and Special Collections, University of Minnesota Duluth
Mixed by Robert Soma-Lewis at Ambient Works
Thank you to Aimee Brown for her help with the archival footage
