Cosmic Basketball

Audio Piece, 1998

Cosmic Basketball is an audio piece created in response to the Hubble Telescope imagery. The piece consists of three soundtracks from basketball activities in a gymnasium: group training, solo practice, and game. The collected sound mirrors cosmic activities, bouncing stars, rings and holes—energetic planetary and galactic interactions. The piece stages different kinds of reverberation when played on the web or in the gallery space. It was first presented in the gallery-space in 1998, before entering the web-space in 2009.

“The decontextualized sound of the ball hitting the ground, the kicking and throwing into the basket takes us into another dimension, it removes us from the game activity to transport us into the universe, a planetary game. The ball’s proportion, the unexpected alternating rhythms, sometimes slow and then fast, from hand to hand, the throw of the ball takes an elliptical trajectory and enters a ring. The collected sounds mirror cosmic activities, bouncing stars, where rings squelch and squish, squeaks and holes are energetic galactic interactions.” S.F. 2018