david kruk
steel chapel
Piezo microphones, audio mixer, headphones
About the Artist
This immersive installation utilizes the shipping container itself as a sound generator that teases out the “sacred” from the mundane sounds of everyday life. By using the inherent resonant qualities of steel with the chamber-like space of the interior of the shipping container, an everyday object can become its own chapel, singing its own song, encouraging others to sing along.
Unlike traditional dynamic or condenser microphones that capture pressure waves through the air, piezo contact microphones sense audio vibrations through physical contact with a material, sort of like a stethoscope used to listen to a person’s heartbeat. The audio captured by the microphones is modified through the mixer by adjusting volume, bass, treble, etc. creating different sound profiles The aural experience inside the shipping container can be pleasant, meditative, and almost sacred. Conversely, dark droning ambiance would produce a feeling of anxiety or danger. The vibrations of footsteps in or around the shipping container gently excite the piezo microphones. A breeze can be translated into a soft choir. The pinging of rain becomes musically percussive.
The concept derives from “musique concrète”, a mid 20th-century practice of music composition whereby non-traditional musical instruments (everyday objects) or field recordings were sourced for their sonic potential, creating arrangements of indeterminacy and soundscapes that would eventually nurture the growth of modern electronic and ambient music. The artist John Cage was an avant-garde utilizing this method.
David Kruk (b. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist currently living in Akron, Ohio. He was born in Mountain View, California before moving to Aurora, Colorado at the age of five. He received his B.F.A. in Pottery at Colorado State University in Fort Collins (2017), and has completed a post-bacc and M.F.A. in Ceramics at Kent State University in Ohio (2022). David has participated in work-study and internship programs at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado and the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. He has also been a teaching assistant for a ceramics workshop at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine. David’s work has been exhibited in Luna Negra Magazine and at the Curfman and Hatton Galleries, Fort Collins, CO; Companion Gallery, Humboldt, TN; Clay Art Center, Port Chester, NY; Malone Art Gallery, Canton, OH; Summit Art Space and Outside The Box, Akron, OH; Payto Gallery, Kent, OH; and the Ohio Craft Museum in Columbus, OH. He is currently an adjunct professor at Kent State University, a ceramics instructor at the Quirk Cultural Center in Cuyahoga Falls, and is a gallery liaison and exhibition assistant for the Akron-based non-profit organization Curated Storefront.
