GHOST LINE X - 02
moody amphitheater at waterloo park
A Massive Immersive Sound and Light Experience
On April 15th, fifteen large speakers were arranged linearly across 300ft of the Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park.
Composers from across the globe were commissioned to create sound compositions designed to activate the scale and spatial qualities of this sound system. Each of the compositions were uniquely engaged with the theme of transportation technology and the vector quality of the sounds they produce.
Original sonic concept by Josef Kristofoletti.
GLX-02 was the closing event of Fusebox Festival 2023 and could not be possible without the generous donation of Nelda Studios and Waterloo Greeenway.
Meet The Composers:
Sebastian DeWay (Montreal, Canada) is a French Canadian who regards himself as belonging to this generation of composer-producer-performer who use the laptop as a musical instrument. This compositional tool allows him to develop his musical skills as much on stage as in the studio. His PhD research investigated the use of spatialization tools and techniques to enhance EDM through an immersive sound experience.
Lyman Hardy (Austin, TX) is an Emmy-nominated sound designer and musician living in Austin, TX. His work ranges from spatial sound installations, feature films and documentaries to modular synth compositions, drums, and percussion. He is a founding member of Rolling Ryot sound collective, as well as Austin-based post house Stuck On On, and has played with numerous Austin bands including Hardy Harris Henley, Thor and Friends, Ed Hall, and Pong.
Augusto Meijer (Rotterdam, Netherlands) is an Electroacoustic music composer, has an European Media Master of Arts degree focused on electroacoustic music, and various composition techniques from the Utrecht School of the Arts. His work is performed at various international venues, including the San Francisco Tape Music Festival, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, International Computer Music Conferences, Glow Eindhoven, ZKM and many more.
Emmett Palaima (Brooklyn, NY) is an artist working with electronics and esoteric processes of sound creation. His practice is conceptually rooted in the idea that technology and magic are one and the same, and that electricity is a manifestation of the divine or elemental forces underlying physical reality. He exhibited at the Santa Fe Currents New Media Festival an worked on immersive art installations at Meow Wolf Creative Studios, at dadaLab, Austin, as well as for the Whitney Biennial and the Palm Springs Art Museum.
Chill Pillsbury / Hexseq (Austin, TX) is an American artist, composer, and music producer based in Austin, TX. His works deal with themes such as desolation and hopelessness and possess a pronounced dark tone. He works in several areas of sound production including, spatial audio, modular synthesis, field recording, sampling, and live performance.
James Talambas (Fort Worth, TX) is a multi-disciplinary new media artist, composer, producer, and activist who creates site-specific, multi-dimensional, multi-sensory sculptures, murals, and performances. Drawing from technology, collaboration, visceral improvisation, and the architectural space of each individual work, he creates art that is personal, emotive, and immersive.
Brian Wenner (Brooklyn, NY) is a Brooklyn-based music composer, sound designer and performer. His artistic practice combines sample collage techniques and live electronic improvisation to create realtime sound compositions. His solo performances center around improvised sample playback manipulation using a modular system and field recordings. Wenner has composed sound for dance, theater, multi-channel installation and digital release.
Spatial Sound
Spatial audio, sometimes referred to as surround sound, expands sound and music outside the bounds of a typical two-speaker stereo system. The Rolling Ryot experiential arts collective has continually pushed this concept by creating unique spatial sound systems. For Ghost Line X, the team is exploring the idea of a massively wide 15-channel sound system that investigates the creative potential of vector sound: sound in linear, bi-directional motion.
Rolling Ryot has commissioned composers to create works inspired by not only the past and present of transportation but to imagine the sonic future of our transportation landscapes. Ghost Line X is a large-scale installation that challenges our current concepts of transportation by addressing the history and future of its various technologies and by engaging the audience to study its complex sonic characters.
Learn More
Rolling Ryot’s first installation of Ghost Line X was in November 2022 at Rosewood Park. Check out the video and this page to learn more.
Rolling Ryot is a nonprofit collective that specializes in immersive sound art. Their original works were grounded in mobile soundscapes moved through residential neighborhoods. Their works include the massive 32-speaker Rainforest Reverb project presented for the 2019 Fusebox Festival and the immersive percussion ensemble Dumpster Fire held in 2020 and 2022.
Event Sponsors:
Nelda Studios is an Austin-based multimedia company with a mission to spark and nurture imagination and creativity through storytelling, broad access to the arts, and community events that provide opportunities to grow and innovate through creative media.
dadaLab is an immersive art studio based in Austin, TX. We are a connected team of artists, musicians, technologists, and performers. We work with a range of media including light, projection, sculpture, spatial sound, and performance. dadaLab’s core directors Barna Kantor and Kyle Evans developed the organization as an evolution of their ongoing projects dadageek and Rolling Ryot.
Fusebox is a non-profit arts organization based in Austin, TX. We were founded by a group of artists in 2005 who wanted to create a robust exchange of ideas across different art forms and geography, with a particular interest in the live experience. Today Fusebox partners with organizations all over the world ranging from small grassroots organizations to major art centers and festivals, and we produce two festivals (The Fusebox Festival & Live in America) along with year-round programming and events.
Waterloo Greenway is a 1.5-mile park system with the power to bring the entire Austin community together. Once complete, the 35 acres of connected green space – meandering from 15th St. along downtown’s eastern edge to Lady Bird Lake – will be home to a wild array of natural and cultural destinations. Amid epic gardens and rolling pathways, and a twinkling Waller Creek that links them, the environment, arts, health, and adventure will converge — and nourish authentic and uplifting experiences that reflect our city’s diversity.