It’s the melody you heard in the womb, before you knew what music was. Later, you recognized it as signifying a space larger than yourself. Through reverberation, you learned depth and distance, thanks to echoes and reflections moving from source to ear to brain.
With Omni Echo, musician and inventor Dr. Chris Warren, along with his wife and collaborator, multi-instrumentalist Dr. Ariana Warren, use reverb to transform ordinary places into immersive, ephemeral art experiences which, as Ariana describes, “promise to always return your voice back to you, more beautiful than you sent it out.”
The setup looks simple: a darkened space with a hidden array of speakers, a pool of light on the floor, a small group of people. One voice speaks, one instrument is played, then another — and layering begins. Notes drift away and return. There is no feedback, thanks to Chris’ software design. Instead, subtle variations in pitch create a shimmering effect. Instinctively, participants slow down and turn purposeful, as they create and respond to the harmonies unfolding around them.
The space becomes a sanctuary, cosmic and comforting. Gentle experiments in sound are rewarded. Quick notes flatten and elongate into a tidal rhythm. Shouts and howls are mitigated by software or the originator being able to anticipate the consequences. Past vocalizations still linger; we converse with the words we spoke half a minute before, making us acutely aware of of time and consequences. Every 55 seconds the system quietly resets. It’s almost imperceptible yet avoids overload.
The roots of this artwork lie in a cistern in the Pacific Northwest and the late composer, author, musician and pioneer Pauline Oliveros. In 1988, Oliveros descended into the resonant tank with two other musicians to record improvisations, giving rise to her principle of “deep listening.” In her 2016 obituary, the New York Times described it as “a practice that compelled listening not just to the conventional details of a given musical performance — melody, harmony, rhythm, intonation — but also to sounds surrounding that performance, including acoustic space and extra-musical noise.” Oliveros called it “a way of listening in every possible way to everything possible, to hear no matter what you are doing.”
Omni Echo reflects Oliveros’ drive to democratize music creation. Anyone can generate a performance, solo or collaborative, and it exists only for that moment. It can’t be fully, accurately represented through a recording. Once ended, it remains a memory of being enveloped in tactile sound, feeling it flow over skin like water.
The physicality of Omni Echo links to another experience: Sprawling on a mat in the high desert north of Joshua Tree, California, listening to quartz crystal singing bowls in the warmth of the Integratron, an all-wood 55’ parabolic dome built in 1954 by George Van Tassel, a former aviation engineer, who claimed to receive design instructions from extraterrestrials. Whatever the source, the Integratron is an acoustically perfect environment transporting visitors to a relaxed state.
A third influence cited by Chris Warren is the work of artist James Turrell, whose experiments in atmospheric perception turn light and space into physical objects. “Turrell frames the sky, telling us to look at it,” Warren says. “This takes all the sounds in a space and accumulates them so we can examine them for a longer period of time.”
Duration is one of the secrets behind Omni Echo. Just as viewers of a Turrell installation can linger for hours, participants in Omni Echo have been known to flop into a delicate dogpile, unmoving. Neuroscience shows that certain sustained sounds, such as the ocean, calm us by signaling that all is well. When a musical note is elongated and harmonized, it turns celestial. Time is slowing, we are surrounded by space, there are no threats nearby. Duration is one of the secrets behind Omni Echo. Just as viewers of a Turrell installation can linger for hours, participants in Omni Echo have been known to flop into a delicate dogpile, unmoving. Neuroscience shows that certain sustained sounds, such as the ocean, calm us by signaling that all is well. When a musical note is elongated and harmonized, it turns celestial. Time is slowing, we are surrounded by space, there are no threats nearby.
Where a Turrell artwork or Van Tassel’s dome is monumental and grand, Omni Echo is adaptable. It’s been set up outdoors and indoors, in public parks, festivals, museums, schools and homes. In this era of overstimulation and pandemic-induced anxiety, perhaps what we all need is to curl up in a safe, silken nest of sound.
Susan Myrland
Curator / Arts Writer
Silvergate Projects, Palm Desert CA
January 2022
inquiries: info@omniecho.com