Cracked and broken for years, the loose marble squares that made up the floos of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY produced tones whenever a visitor would step on them. Within the large interior spaces those notes for decades had become a part of the experience of visiting the gallery. The random creation of the musical stones turned each room into a unique instrument and with the layout of every new exhibition a score was unintentionally created.
This soundscape within the white cube became part of the ritual of visiting the museum. The experience of viewing the work in these rooms was unique as the soundscape could not be ignored and became integrated into the art.
Recording the sounds of the loose stones in 2015 I created a collection of audio files. My intention was for the tones to be downloaded and installed on phones as ringtones or text alerts. Playing the sounds outside of the gallery space would disconnect the sounds from a visit to the Albright-Knox and allow for new contextualization. Or perhaps it would bring feelings associated with the gallery experience into other realms. But I was most interested in what would happen when those notes organically generated within the space were echoed by a recording nearby but out of place.
In 2019 the gallery was closed to the public for a multi-year renovation, expansion, and construction of new buildings. The floors have been replaced and the sounds are no longer part of this environment. Now my hope is that these recorded tones can be brought back into the space as ghosts of the museum’s former existence.
The tones can be downloaded for free by clocking on the icon below. The ZIP compressed folder contains both MP3 for Android and M4R files for iPhone.
Installing Ringtones on an Android Device
Download the compressed .ZIP folder from the website onto your computer
1. Uncompress the .zip file and copy the MP3 files to your android phone.
2. Go to Settings , Sound , Device ringtone. You will see a list of the phone's default ringtones.
3. Tap the Add button to launch the media manager app.
4. You will see a list of music files stored on your phone. Select one and tap Done.
5. Your selected MP3 track will now be your custom ringtone.
Installing Ringtones on an iPhone
Download the compressed .ZIP folder from the website onto your computer
1. Uncompress the .zip file and drag the M4R files into iTunes.
2. Connect your iPhone to your computer.
3. Select it in iTunes and click the Tones tab.
4. Ensure the new tones are check-marked in the Tones library and Sync the iPhone.
