Chicago Artists Coalition is pleased to present, ‘scapes, a solo exhibition featuring new works by BOLT Resident, Norman W. Long.

Long’s body of work and soundscapes create an opportunity to "slip into the breaks and look around," to think about who we are and our relationship to these sounds and each other.‘scapes offers an alternative way of moving through private and personal spaces, and through digital sound processing in the context of multiple cultural meanings.

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man has been an inspiration to Long's practice of working with sound. In the book, the protagonist's experiences with sound (mainly through jazz) parallel his interest in the relationship of sound to identity or Black subjectivity.

The artist uses the sound and cultural landscape of the West Loop and Union Park in Chicago to present an improvised experience and installation. He makes strange the very familiar. Incorporating glitch and dub technology into his objects, video, and sound components, Long is “versioning” the West Loop, slipping us in and out of time, history, or the hip and familiar. Long layers memory and place in his compositions.

The artist will use the BOLT gallery as performance space for live electro-acoustic solo works and collaborations on:

Friday, January 9, 7:00 - 7:30pm: Chicago Phonography Group Performance

Saturday, January 17, 6:30 - 7:30pm: Duo Performance Networked performancefeaturing Thomas Bey William Bailey (Tulsa, OK) + Norman W. Long (Chicago, IL)

Saturday, January 24, 6:30 - 7:30pm: Solo Performance

Norman W. Long (b. 1973, Chicago, IL) is a local sound artist/designer/composer born and raised on the South Side of Chicago. His current work focuses on sound art production within the larger context of landscape. The processes involved in his practice lie within the area of field recording, electro-acoustic composition, and dub technique. Long received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and Master of Landscape Architecture from Cornell University. He is an active member of the World Listening Project and the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology. Long has performed with Chicago Phonography, and performed and exhibited at Kavi Gupta Gallery, Hungryman Gallery, Southside Hub of Production (SHoP), and North Branch Projects. Norman has received a 3Arts Award for Sound Art in 2012, 3Arts Residency Fellowship at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in 2014, and is a current BOLT Artist-in-Residence at the Chicago Artists Coalition.