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Sound and Documentary in Cardiff and Miller's Pandemonium Main Menu Welcome The Project Chapter 1: Pandemonium—Sensory Assault and Deprivation Chapter 2: Sound Art—Narrative and Noise Chapter 3: Documentary—“Waking the Dead” Conclusions: Pandemonium, Radical Proximity, and Protest Acknowledgments Bibliography All Media News + Updates

George Bures Miller and Carlos Crovato in Cellblock Seven, Eastern State Penitentiary.

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All Images Cecilia Wichmann
Contents of this tag:
1. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller recording audio for Jena Walk (Memory Field), 2006 © Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller; Courtesy of the artists and Luhring Augustine, New York.
2. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, The Killing Machine, 2007 © Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller; Courtesy of the artists and Luhring Augustine, New York.
3. Janet Cardiff, Words Drawn in Water, 2005 © Janet Cardiff.
4. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Feedback, 2004 © Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller; Courtesy of the artists and Luhring Augustine, New York.
5. Kongorikishi (also known as Ni-o) Kamakura period, Japan, early 14th century. Wood. Freer Gallery of Art.
6. James McNeill Whistler, Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room, 1876–77. Freer Gallery of Art.
7. Matrix editor view, Pandemonium score.
8. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller listening to Pandemonium from Cellblock Seven's upper and lower galleries.
9. Cellblock Seven, Eastern State Penitentiary.
10. 1830s Etching of Eastern State Penitentiary.
11. Eastern State Penitentiary south wall, 2014.
12. Carlos Crovato assisting in the Pandemonium workshop.
13. Cell interior in abandoned state, Eastern State Penitentiary.
14. Jeff Wall, A man with a rifle, 2000.
15. Auguste Rodin, The Burghers of Calais (detail), 1884–1889 (cast 1953–1959).
16. Google Map view of Eastern State Penitentiary, April 2015.
17. Cell restored to 1830s appearance, Eastern State Penitentiary.
18. Beater striking drawers, Pandemonium. Courtesy of Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site.
19. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller listening to Pandemonium in Cellblock Seven.
20. Jeff Wall, Overpass, 2001.
21. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller testing Pandemonium.
22. Selection of Pandemonium beaters in situ, Eastern State Penitentiary.
23. Tresor, Berlin, 1991.
24. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller testing Pandemonium.
25. Control room containing MIDI system, Pandemonium.
26. Janet Cardiff listening to Pandemonium in Cellblock Seven during the composition process.
27. Cellblock Seven, view from balcony, Eastern State Penitentiary.
28. Le Corbusier, Philips Pavilion, Expo 1958. Photo by Wouter Hagens. WikiMedia Commons.
29. George Bures Miller and Carlos Crovato in the Pandemonium workshop.
30. Beater striking lampshade, Pandemonium.
31. Cellblock Seven, skylight. Eastern State Penitentiary.
32. Layout from George Bures Miller's notebook, Pandemonium.
33. Path along the National Mall. Janet Cardiff, Words Drawn in Water, 2005 © Janet Cardiff.
34. Eastern State Penitentiary Protest, July 1970. Courtesy of Temple University Libraries.
35. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller composing Pandemonium at Eastern State Penitentiary.
36. Eastern State Penitentiary Protest, July 1970. Courtesy of Temple University Libraries.
37. Eastern State Penitentiary, 1920s
38. Richard Herrod, Janet Cardiff, and George Bures Miller in Cellblock Seven.
39. Masked prisoner in Eastern State Penitentiary, late 19th century.
40. MIDI system and keyboards, Pandemonium.
41. William Harnett, The Old Violin, 1886.
42. Plan of Eastern State Penitentiary existing structures as of 1993.
43. Richard Herrod assisting in the Pandemonium workshop.
44. Janet Cardiff, The Forty Part Motet (A reworking of “Spem in Alium” by Thomas Tallis 1556), 2001 © Janet Cardiff; Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York. Johanniterkirche, Feldkirch, 2005. Photo: Markus Tretter. Janet Cardiff, The Forty Part Motet (A reworking of “Spem in Alium” by Thomas Tallis 1556), 2001 © Janet Cardiff; Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York. Johanniterkirche, Feldkirch, 2005. Photo: Markus Tretter. 40 loud speakers mounted on stands, placed in an oval, amplifiers, playback computer. Duration: 14 min. loop with 11 min. of music and 3 min. of intermission. Sung by Salisbury Cathedral Choir. Recording and Postproduction by SoundMoves. Edited by George Bures Miller. Produced by Field Art Projects. The Forty Part Motet by Janet Cardiff was originally produced by Field Art Projects with the Arts Council of England, Canada House, the Salisbury Festival and Salisbury Cathedral Choir, BALTIC Gateshead, The New Art Gallery Walsall, and the NOW Festival Nottingham.
45. John Haviland's plan for Eastern State Penitentiary as constructed, 1837.
46. MIDI and beater diagram from George Bures Miller's notebook, Pandemonium.
47. Titus Maderlechner and George Bures Miller preparing Pandemonium.
48. George Bures Miller in the Pandemonium production workshop across Fairmont Ave from the penitentiary.
49. George Bures Miller and Carlos Crovato preparing the Pandemonium system.
50. Keyboard controllers, Pandemonium.
51. Riot at Eastern State Penitentiary, September 1933. Courtesy of Temple University Libraries.
52. George Bures Miller and Carlos Crovato in Cellblock Seven, Eastern State Penitentiary.
53. Robert Smithson, Yucatan Mirror Displacements (1–9), 1969.
54. Inventory from George Bures Miller's notebook, Pandemonium.
55. Waveform view of Pandemonium recording.
56. George Bures Miller and Richard Herrod installing Pandemonium, Cellblock Seven upper gallery.
57. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller at Eastern State Penitentiary.
58. Carlos Crovato and George Bures Miller in Cellblock Seven.
59. Luigi Russolo, Ugo Piatti, and the Intonarumori, 1913.
60. Visitors at Pandemonium opening events.
61. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. Courtesy of Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site.
62. Tonmeister Titus Maderlechner composing Pandemonium.
63. Solenoid prototype, Pandemonium.
64. Cylindrical plaza and fountain designed by Gordon Bunshaft. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
65. George Bures Miller and Janet Cardiff fine-tuning Pandemonium.
66. Pandemonium wires, Cellblock Seven.
67. Smithson Crypt, Smithsonian Castle.
68. Fallout Shelter Sign, Eastern State Penitentiary.
69. Prototype for a solenoid casing
70. Curator Julie Courtney discusses Pandemonium at press event.
71. Fallout Supplies Barrel, Eastern State Penitentiary.
72. George Bures Miller fabricating a solenoid prototype for the Pandemonium beaters.
73. Janet Cardiff and Tonmeister Titus Maderlechner, Eastern State Penitentiary.
74. Visitors to Eastern State Penitentiary listening to audio tour

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Composing Pandemonium
Cardiff and Miller’s initial proposal for Pandemonium helps elucidate the connection between the work’s sonic force and its interpretation of Eastern State Penitentiary. [163] It suggests that Pandemonium’s sounds served a documentary purpose. Julie Courtney approached Cardiff in 2001 about creating an audio walk for Eastern State Penitentiary. [164] The site was preparing to launch its audio tour at the time, and Torchia suggested Cardiff for an intervention to repurpose its audio devices. [165] Courtney had just experienced Cardiff’s The Missing Voice, Case Study B (1999) in London and felt that the walk’s capacity for, “shifting [the user] between realities” of a given place would translate in an intriguing way to the penitentiary, which Courtney described as, “a perfect place for one of Janet’s signature walks with its mix of history, creepiness, and ghosts—a gorgeous, if heartbreaking, environment.” [166] Cardiff responded with interest to Courtney’s outreach, scheduling a site-visit for 2002, but dispelled the assumption that she would work in the walk format. [167] Cardiff suggested instead an installation related to Forty Part Motet, involving a local composer or chorus. [168]

Courtney and the site’s staff crafted a grant application to the Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, seeking support “to invite internationally recognized audio artist Janet Cardiff to design a project for the cellblocks of this now-silent landmark.” [169] They outlined two possible directions for the project: a vaguely articulated “Motet form,” or as many continued to hope, “the artist may decide to create an audio tour, as she has for several other locations.” [170] When Cardiff and Miller visited Eastern State Penitentiary in December 2002, they were reticent about their plans but expressed strong interest in cellblock seven, which could not accommodate visitors at the time. [171] It required a new roof, repairs to the skylights, restoration of the balcony, and public safety features like emergency lighting and alarms. [172] The site got started on these repairs, using funds awarded in support of a project by Cardiff. Additional grants helped complete the stabilization in time for Pandemonium to be installed in April 2005. Cellblock seven opened to the public along with Pandemonium that May.

Cardiff and Miller proposed an installation for Eastern State Penitentiary that would blend documentary-style testimony with sonic illusion of bodily presence through 45 audio speakers. [173] The speakers would occupy a “skylit cellblock,” each to a cell so as to “represent a person.” [174] The proposal summarized:

The piece we are conceiving would be a musical composition made of multiple voices and percussion instruments in a composition that would be a hybrid between a multi-layered documentary style audio piece and a polyphonic choral harmonic piece. The composition would reflect and explore the stories, history and ghosts of the site. [175]
The artists imagined a work in three parts, evolving from spoken testimony to choral song to percussion. After a collage of voices read quietly from writings about Eastern State Penitentiary, talking about its architecture and describing personal incarceration experiences, they would come together in song and then morph into “percussive sounds from the cells themselves such as banging on the walls and bars.” [176] The proposal outlines interplay between the individual and the congregation: “One of the themes of the composition would be the relationship of the singular to the communal, and the intimate connection of the listener to the individual but also the intensity and almost fear felt in being surrounded by a large group of male voices.” [177] To begin, “One voice would pass on a message to another . . . and build to waves of voices heard together as if they were praying.” [178] The second part intensified this feeling of congregation as, “singing would move harmonically from cell to cell and then join together at times in chorus.” [179] Parts would then merge and crescendo: “The composition would start very simply and build so that it would be quite terrifying and powerful at the climax and then loop to the silence of the beginning.” [180]

Many core aspects of this early iteration are residual in Pandemonium’s final form. Speakers inhabit cells as robotic beaters eventually would, and percipients direct their own experiences, “from many vantage points, for example from the entrance to the hallway as a traditional audience member would, or from within the work by walking through the sound as they pass the cells.” [181] The last of the three parts represented the same percussive textures through recorded sounds that Pandemonium ultimately produced live. Though it dispensed with the human voice, Pandemonium nevertheless maintained the interplay between individual and collective with its call-and-response pulse and dance and military themes. Finally, the compositional arc - from quiet beginning through terrifying climax - was identical to their proposed format. The proposal provides clear evidence that Cardiff and Miller knew from the start what kind of affect they were after for Eastern State Penitentiary and how they might achieve it in a looping sequence.

Cardiff and Miller made a series of choices while developing Pandemonium that, in light of their extant bodies of work and initial proposal for Eastern State Penitentiary, raise intriguing questions about the relationship the work proposes for documentary and music. They refused the invitation to produce an audio walk in favor of a more abstract, spatial installation with choral music. This abstracting impulse was revised, somewhat, in the proposal, which integrated “documentary-style” testimony and choral music into a narrative of interpersonal communication, prayer, congregation, and collective rebellion. That the piece would now culminate in percussive sound, however, suggested a further move away from melody. The final version of the work subsumes all traces of explicit vocal narrative into textural, percussive music. Pandemonium seems at first the most thoroughly abstract and musical of Cardiff and Miller’s works to date, yet in opting for acoustic sound it turns out to be their most concrete. [182] Together these choices invite a closer examination of Pandemonium as documentary.