mjanco-LookingOutwards-04

This week I looked at James Murphy’s “Subway Symphony” from 2014. This was a project in which Murphy wanted to change the harsh beep sound when passengers swipe their cards before getting on the subway. He decided to have each swiping station randomly play 1 0f 8 notes, so as the subway station gets busy, the notes play together to create music. I really admired that James Murphy wanted to take advantage of a sound that many New Yorkers hear on a daily basis, and turn it into something beautiful. It was a way of bringing generative sound art into a setting that everyday people experience daily. I know the process for this project was also very cheap, because they already needed to have a sound be generated, they just needed to program the stations to randomly play a note from a set of notes that sound nice together. James Murphy is a native of New York City and has played many shows and done many recordings there. It makes sense that he wanted to create generative art that could be experienced by the public crowds of New York. His work is also usually based in simple singular notes layered on top of each other, as represented in this piece.