Resonance: Nue Landscapes, 2023
an art, sound, and culinary experience
with curator Brianna McIntyre and ceramicist Jamie Harris
seven course wood-fired meal, accompanying 8-channel sound score, handmade ceramics, zine and cassette
Luminary Arts, Saint Louis, MO
all photos courtesy The Luminary and Nyara Williams
MENU
TO EAT
1_micros, pickled sungolds, pickled mustard seeds, grilled sourdough
2_grilled ozark mushrooms, runny egg, ginger–scallion, miso broth
3_chilled pumpkin soup, mole negro, sorghum molasses, roasted seeds
4_lechon, green mango, kawali sauce, pickled chilis, jasmine rice
5_dry–aged red angus ribeye, july blueberries demi, marrow butter
6_lemon curd, rosemary, august raspberry shrub
7_grilled july peaches, frozen chevre & pecan custard, seed coulis
TO LISTEN
1_pastoral drone, guitars, synthesizer in c sharp minor
2_dirt road, percussive gravel, pitched mowers (distance), samples, synthesizers in f sharp major
3_crickets, cicadas, evening ambience, effected percussion, synthesizers in c sharp major
4_grazing goats (glitched) and analog synthesizers in c minor
5_threshing loops & analog synthesis in f major
6_percussive pasture (glitched), analog synthesizers, analog delay, samples in a minor
7_tall grasses, forest echoes, guitars, vocal samples in c major
Zine excerpt
I remember the first time I tried a fresh–picked strawberry. It was odd and misshapen, a little dirty, a little mushy, deep red, and amazing. It was in so many ways completely opposite to the clean, consistently shaped, near–crunchy, consistently bland, shipped–from–California grocery store berries I knew.
John Cage— who once nearly died in the woods eating what he thought was skunk cabbage— moved to the country for the express purpose of learning about music by devoting himself to the mushroom. In his somewhat tongue in cheek Music Lovers’ Field Companion he wondered if we couldn’t one day use recording technologies to amplify and magnify the many sonorities of the natural world, and in doing so, what orchestrations and music we might uncover.
Much like music, organic life is an absurd, improbable, and serendipitous phenomenon. In planning this dinner, I wanted to approach my edible ingredients and my sounds in the same way. I field–recorded a collection of sounds at farms where this food was being grown or raised. Back in the studio, I played these field recordings over and over, isolating frequency bands and looping moments of time, listening for snippets of natural percussion or melodies. I arranged my own harmonies and cadences atop those samples, weaving them all into the movements that comprise the sound score of this dinner.
I was improvising in the kitchen as well, assembling a larder of preserved seasonal ingredients and writing the menu as I went. I canned a bumper crop of blueberries in July which would eventually be featured in the demi-glace. In August a local farmer processed some red angus, so I dry–aged the ribeye and rendered the marrow for butter. And my own garden’s tarragon was still blooming this week.
With this meal and these sounds I hope to celebrate the organic, the indeterminate, and the unpredictable. Working with the seasons, using what’s available— there are solutions nearby. The Luminary doesn’t have a full kitchen but it does have a parking pad that can fit an eight–foot woodfire grill. There are no caviar farms on the Mississippi, but have you ever tried a pickled mustard seed? Food is resiliency and food is community. Pauline Olivieros said that listening is survival. Well, so is eating. Let’s listen, and let’s eat.
—Alex Braden, Resonance: Nue Landscapes Artist Statement, 2023
Sounds and ingredients sourced from the greater St. Louis area, including but not limited to:
Garden Gate Farm, Fairbury, IL
Doug Rinkenberger, Fairbury, IL
D&M Farm, Breese, IL
Chenoa Processing, Chenoa, IL
Jarrell Forman, Shelbyville, MO
Ogre Hill Farm, Valmeyer, IL
FOOM, Farmington, MO
Good Life Growing, Old North St. Louis, MO
Matt Stuckenmeyer’s Family Farm, Columbia, IL
Keith Biver, Edwardsville, IL
Baetje Farm, Bloomsdale, MO
Slagel Family Farm, Fairbury, IL
Flowers and Weeds, St. Louis, MO
Prairie Apiaries, Ava, IL
Jonathan Poirot, Greenfield, MO
Janie’s Farm, Ashkum, IL
Garden Gate Farm, Fairbury, IL
Martin Rice Co., Bernie, MO
Buttonwood Farm, California, MO
Abundant Pastures, Claremont, IL
Hemme Brothers Creamery, Sweet Springs, MO
McGraw Hilltop, St. Charles County, MO
Extra special thanks to:
Autumn at Such & Such Farm, DeSoto, IL
Preston at Eat Here STL, St. Louis, MO