In the late 1970’s, the U.S. was more than 20 years into its nuclear power program. In Washington, a consortium of public utilities began what was to be the largest single nuclear power project in the country’s history. Five reactors, divided between sites located near the cities of Hanford and Satsop, were intended to be a solution to projected energy demands of the rapidly growing region. Three years and several billion dollars into the endeavor, the remaining members of the Washington Public Power Supply System ceased construction of the nearly completed plants. Poor oversight, material miscalculations and the turning of public opinion with regards to nuclear power left the agency with no other option than to cut its losses, leaving the massive remnants of their futurist daydreaming to rest against the backdrop of rural Washington.

Today, a collection of warehouses and businesses occupy the buildings that were intended to house the administrative offices and support facilities of the Satsop plant. The cooling towers still loom over the industrial park. The towers, No. 4 and No. 5, are identical in appearance, both measuring 420 feet across at the base, and rising to a height of nearly 500 feet. No. 5, however, was never fully completed and remains free of the concrete and steel inner-structures of its twin. At its apex, the tower is open to the sky, leaving its interior exposed to the rains of the Pacific Northwest. Never having been used, the earthen floor of the tower has become overgrown with wild grasses, while the inner walls and support columns are now tinted green from the lichens and mosses that grow in the concrete’s cracks and pores. The tower resembles the neck of an hourglass, tapering gradually from the base then widening again after reaching its narrowest point 400 feet above the ground. The design, meant to channel super-heated steam from the reactor’s cooling system into the sky, has a similar, though unintended effect on sound. Within the tower, even the slightest sonic trigger becomes a dynamic acoustic event. Waveforms collide with the structure’s walls, echoing throughout the space and unfolding in the air overhead.

The Satsop cooling tower’s unique form and acoustics present an uncanny aesthetic experience, enabling this strange environment to function as a novel artistic medium. Over the past four years, Environmental Aesthetics has worked to open the space to artistic interpretation, emphasizing the interplay between site-specific sonic art, weathered industrial architecture and the natural environment. During the summers of ’07 and ’08, Environmental Aesthetics hosted two groups of sound artists, who were invited to create and record original sonic works within the tower. Compositions created for this year’s residency will be presented at the Fulcrum Gallery in Tacoma, Washington on March 19.




2007

MYELLO ELECTRONICS is Olympia based composer Daniel Farrell. Farrell identifies his works as non-narrative associative sound poems, which are strongly informed by Surrealist philosophies and compositional strategies. Using significant and familiar sounds, and digital manipulation, Farrell’s compositions aspire to invoke the ecstatic nature of the human spirit against the backdrop of what he describes as the technological totality. Artist Website

YANN NOVAK is a Seattle based sound artist and founder of Dragon’s Eye Recordings. Novak uses field recordings and digital manipulation to produce compositions. These works offer Novak’s interpretation of the emotional effect of specific physical environments and emphasize the expressive nature of time and place. Artist Website Record Label

PROBLEMS is an Olympia based collective represented here by Ian Ackerman, Joe Kuta, Warren Lee and Gabe Will. Through sound, the group actively collaborates and engages with the specific interiors in which their compositions take form. Focusing on sustained tones and the phantom melodies that arise within them, they expose microstructures and rich polyforms found within sustained pitch.




The archive consists of the three compositions created during the 2007 residency and originally presented at the OKOK Gallery in Seattle, Wa. The pieces are formatted as medium grade mp3s. Each piece varies in length and will in turn vary in buffering time. Also, several of the compositions begin gradually and at a low volume. Be patient. The slow progression is intended.





Environmental Aesthetics is now accepting proposals for the 2009 Satsop Residency.To download application guidelines, click here.