{"id":481246,"date":"2026-10-01T05:16:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T05:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481246\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T05:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T05:16:16","slug":"one-night-sound-art-event-returns-to-belmont-shore-for-second-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481246\/","title":{"rendered":"One-night sound-art event returns to Belmont Shore for second year –"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Preliminary map of LBsoundbrowse 2026 installations <\/p>\n

One year ago, the inaugural LBsoundbrowse<\/a> was an experiment. Could Long Beach\u2019s main shopping and dining drag successfully accommodate the sort of annual sound-art event that previously flourished in Long Beach and now in San Pedro partly because it was staged in arts-dedicated locations?<\/p>\n

For curatorial group FLOOD and hosting organization Belmont Shore Business Association (BSBA), the answer turned out to be yes \u2014 despite heavy rain throwing a wrench in the works \u2014 and so, for one night in October, 2nd Street will once again be threaded with dozens of audiocentric multimedia installations.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitially we were unsure how this would work in a \u2018secular\u2019 \u2014 as opposed to an arts-forward \u2014 space or area,\u201d says LBsoundbrowse co-producer Marco Schindelmann. \u201cEverything we\u2019d done previously was in an arts district or cultural center or museum \u2014dedicated arts spaces \u2014 whereas Belmont Shore is more or less pure commerce and entertainment. We were concerned that we might be asked to compromise or whore ourselves to fit here, but because of Heather\u2019s knowledge and valuing of what we do, we\u2019re able to stage a pure art event in a very alien environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s BSBA Executive Director Heather Kern he\u2019s talking about, whose love of both FLOOD\u2019s annual SoundWalk (East Village Arts District 2004\u20132013) and soundpedro<\/a> (2017\u2013present) events is what made her want to try it on 2nd Street. And she was intrigued by the novel possibilities inherent to staging such a happening in an area where there would be a mix of people present for the art and those who come for different reasons but stumble across it.\"RezaReza Monohans LBsoundbrowse 2025 installation<\/p>\n

Kern and Schindelmann report that this year the intention is to have a more prominent outdoor presence \u2014 through both fixed and roaming works \u2014 while retaining the number of indoor installations.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecond Street doesn\u2019t easily allow for the clustering of installations that have been a hallmark of SoundWalk and soundpedro,\u201d Schindelmann says. \u201cBut we\u2019re welcoming the challenge of creating \u2018sound strands\u2019 this year, which hopefully will produce more overall connectivity this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few examples of what\u2019s on tap:<\/p>\n

Deniz Tafaghodi\u2019s \u201cScores for Dragging\u201d is a participatory sound work in which simple found objects become temporary extensions of the body. Participants will select from a table of \u201cfound\u201d objects (e.g., dried branches\/leaves, string, tubes, paper, pipes), attach it to an ankle, and follow the score \u2014 a set of instructions for movement, listening, and interaction with the space \u2014 that comes with it, combining with other participants to create a spontaneously emergent soundscape.An installation by Essvus \u201cbreaks down the borders between sound and space itself\u201d by reprocessing sounds of the outside world \u201cinto a loop of warped noise sonics. [\u2026] As the transformed sound enters and interacts with the outside world, it goes back into the microphone, creating a complete cycle. The physical space around the performance and nearby people themselves become part of the performance, physical existence transmuted into sound. Rhythmic structures and synthesized tones added into the loop constitute the reverse transformation: unembodied sound becoming embodied space.\u201dDonned in a plexiglass structure with a variety of top-to-bottom paths, down which steel balls will fall, Genevieve Bartlett will be something like a roaming game of \u201cambulatory pachinko.\u201dActuated by disabling a tape recorder\u2019s eraser head, Aaron West\u2019s \u201cThe Sonic Palimpsest\u201d is \u201can infinite sound-on-sound accumulator,\u201d with live, ambient violin textures imprinting onto the loop and stacking exponentially. \u201cAs the medium approaches physical saturation, historic layers dissolve into warm, distorted memories while sharp, new harmonics pierce the dense sonic mass. This slow stratification is disrupted by public intervention[, as p]assersby strike nearby resonant objects, triggering a variety of found sounds local to the area,\u201d resulting in \u201can unpredictable dialogue between the weight of accumulated history and the immediate, kinetic energy of the street.\u201d\"\"Franco Castillo\u2019s LBsoundbrowse 2025 installation<\/p>\n

But words always come up short in describing both individual installations and the overall experience, where the bustle and ambience that ostensibly isn\u2019t part of the art needn\u2019t be ignored but rather recontextualized. If sound-art does its job \u2014 or if you do your job as a listener \u2014 it\u2019s not only itself but also a tool for helping you pay closer\/better\/different attention to the stream of sound(s) that\u2019s constantly pouring into your ears even in ostensibly \u201cnon-art\u201d moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re really just browsing all the sound \u2014 including whatever sound is organic to 2nd Street,\u201d Kern says. \u201c[\u2026] Until someone has experienced [a sound-art event], it doesn\u2019t matter how much you tell them \u2014 they don\u2019t quite get it. \u2018Here\u2019s what you can expect\u2019 is not quite sufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kern notes that this year\u2019s increased use of outdoor space includes the clock courtyard near Roycroft Ave., the backside of the Bank of America (where the long-defunct pneumatic tubes remain in place), and the parking area behind TAVi Art, which attendees will access through a blacklight room. She also harbors the hope that LBsoundbrowse will help those unfamiliar with 2nd Street discover what it has to offer, while admitting that she would like it to offer more \u2014 a deficiency she wants to improve with more arts programming.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecond Street is a really great place to wander around, but I think we have over 50 places to eat and not enough things to do,\u201d she says. \u201c[LBsoundbrowse] is the kind of activity that\u2019s good for people who are just meandering around. You can come early and have dinner; you can come late and have drinks after. You can make a full evening out of coming to this. [\u2026] You can stay [with a particular installation] for five minutes or 50 minutes \u2014 it\u2019s really up to you. You experience it for however long you want to be with it, and then you move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rain or shine, LBsoundbrowse 2026<\/a> takes place on October 10 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Preliminary map of LBsoundbrowse 2026 installations One year ago, the inaugural LBsoundbrowse was an experiment. Could Long Beach\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[9720,23050,188694,131,133,132,9722],"class_list":["post-481246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-curtaincall","tag-lbc","tag-lbsoundbrowsek","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-rln"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}