ROUGH RIDE

Rough Ride is an 8-channel sound-based work that weaves together sounds from the Baltimore Uprising following the killing of Freddie Gray by the Baltimore Police and audio culled from social and mass media, along with the sounds of police surveillance, control, and violence. 

This piece folds the narrative of events over itself, playing the sounds of protest, politicians' awkward, tone-deaf speeches, the breathless, pro-police biased coverage of the media, and push back against it from fed-up community members alongside audio portraying the rough ride itself, putting the listener in the position of Gray inside the van. The sounds of the Uprising rise in intensity along with the vehicular sounds of the ride towards an overwhelming, cataclysmic crescendo. These sounds play out from six speakers on a 16 foot long shelf, offering no opportunity to hear and comprehend the entire sequence of events from any given position. Above, the sound of the Baltimore Police Foxtrot Helicopters unceasingly play from three speakers hung from the celling, a constant reminder of the surveillance state, and the violence that flows from it.