1. Other Channels
Other Channels explores a history of the Missouri River through a century of USGS water data, historical maps, and community research. Composed and arranged for a non-traditional string quartet from the Omaha Symphony (Violin: Lucy Duke, Cello: InYoung Park, Bass: Bobby Scharmann, Violist: Bozhidar Shopov). The work was performed while cruising the river on an open air boat together with the audience and a panel of locals (featuring Shannon Bartelt-Hunt, Professor and Chair in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nebraska; Jack Phillips, naturalist, poet, nature writer, and founder of The Naturalist School; and Don Moses, retired Civil Engineer, U.S.). World premiere commissioned by Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.
2. Sono/Aqua
Sono/Aqua utilizes a system pioneered by Botello that activates and amplifies the resonant frequency of water in real-time; a swimming pool "sings" out its vibration, and simultaneously activates standing waves and harmonic nodes above and below water. While immersed, bodies become live nodes -- audibly affecting and altering the frequency of the pool. Participants hear through their bone structures; tuning in to engage differences in aurality between air and water, cochlear and bone, active and receptive, solo and communal. Each movement affords a new listening experience, and the audience is encouraged to explore freely as they co-compose alongside the water. World premiere commissioned by MATA for the 20th Annual MATA Festival.
3. Yanaguana Frictions
Yanaguana Frictions is a large-scale immersive installation reflecting on the 12,000+ year material and cultural history of the San Antonio River. Botello engineered seven sculptures out of Bexar-county limestone and glass that resonate recordings made with a hydrophone from several significant sites along the River — at the Headwaters/Blue Hole, the Pump House at Brackenridge Park, the heart of the Riverwalk, the water-powered grain mill at Mission San José, and the Espada Dam/acequia. Also featured — a community gathered multi-voice choral work (composed in Nahuatl, Spanish, German, and English; edited to amplify only the breaths between singing and speaking; engineered to sound through the walls of the site), field recordings of local cicadas, a digital projection of 16mm film (submerged blank into the River for the water to develop the reel), objects collected from walks along the 240 mile length of the River (petrified wood, clay pottery shards, glass, rusted metal, barbed wire), a ceramic sculpture of St. Anthony ("San Antonio"), limited edition zines, and prints of film stills. Commissioned by S.M.A.R.T. for their SA 300 San Antonio Tricentennial Celebration Residency.
4. Untitled. 1972, from Deja-Vu
Untitled. 1972, from Deja-Vu is a composition in response to the Ralph Gibson photograph of same title. Paired together for the exhibition, the work is engineered for headphones. Commissioned by the Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania for Landscape / Soundscape.
5. Bodies of Water
Bodies of Water is an ongoing series of sculptures requiring listeners to physically initiate contact with the works, resonating their bone structures. The long-form compositions contained within the water are thus made audible. Commissions from Flux Factory, Little Berlin, and Fairmount Water Works.
