See also: EA

Ben Owen's current work includes improvised and graphic score based performance, audio and video collaborations, and a weekly internet radio program. His early sound studies began with cassettes and live radio, in tandem with stone lithography printmaking and photographic slide projections. Owen's process of lithographic printing is balanced by the intended preservation and natural degradation of marks. He finds complimentary inherent similarities between the cycles of inking and surface reception of printmaking, mark making through drawing on printing stones, and audio marks amplified by contact mics and environmental recordings. Owen is interested in the relationship between the spacial aspects of existing sound fields, intervened environments, and the projection and reflection of light. locations are an active and physical palette, much like an improvisational setting where control is relinquished. through mark making, and an attention to instability he continues the practice of listening and response.

"Ben Owen is an investigator, explorer and illustrator of the physical properties of the world we inhabit. His work across multiple media, including sound, video and, importantly, stone litho printmaking, is motivated by a desire to more deeply understand the inner life and character of the materials he works with, rather than an impulse to control or implement them. While Ben doesn't shy away from the use of the computer, he is much more interested in the rich dynamism of the structures and forces he investigates — electricity, light, ink, spacial acoustics, field recordings — than in the power and precision of software-driven techniques." - Morgan Packard

Ben Owen has presented work with The Kitchen, free103point9 Wave Farm, Millennium Film Workshop, the White Box Gallery, 106BLDG30, Tonic, Engine 27, the 6 & B Community Garden, Issue Project Room, Diapason Gallery for Sound and Intermedia, and The Tank in New York; das kleine field recordings festival in Berlin, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Kichijoji Museum in Tokyo; as well as various ongoing radio programs on stations Resonance FM in London, WKCR Columbia University New York, Radia Network, and free103point9 in New York.

He has performed and in some cases recorded with tiptip, ting ting jahe, mpld, ea, Sawako, Civyiu Kkliu, The Beige Channel, Radio_Ruido, Bruce Tovsky, Richard Garet, Takefumi Naoshima, Scott Allison, Katherine Liberovskaya, Michelle Nagai, John Hudak, Tommy Birchett, Tianna Kennedy, Andy Graydon, Andy Hayleck, Ian Epps, Tom Roe, Shimpei Takeda, Kay Nishikawa, Bruce Tovsky, Patrick McGinley (Murmur), Hitoshi Kojo, Jack Wright, Bryan Eubanks, and Albert Ortega.

Owen has released audio works on winds measure recordings, addenda, unframed recordings, free103point9 Dispatch Series, Autumn Records, Petite Sono, Throat, Phonography.org, con-v, Frozen Elephants Music, Asthmatic Kitty, and room40.

http://benowen.org

at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Pictured (left to right): Michelle Nagai, Tianna Kennedy, Ben Owen, Todd Merrell. at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Pictured (left to right): Michelle Nagai, Tianna Kennedy, Ben Owen, Todd Merrell, Tom Roe.

LINKS

ARCHIVE

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Audio

  • Ben Owen & Gill Arno at Black & White Gallery for Frequencies, Feb. 4, 2007. Performance from duo of owen and Arno, both manipulating radios. Part of a day of free103point9 performances for Frequencies. (audio/mpeg, 30.3 MB)
  • Michelle Nagai & Ben Owen at Three-Legged Dog: For Ear to the Earth, Oct. 6, 2006. Performance from Michelle Nagai + ben owen (audio/mpeg, 11.8 MB)
  • Giant Ear #9_Inside Out NYC, Jan. 29, 2006. 012906 (audio/mpeg, 81.7 MB)
  • Giant Ear: NYSAE Retreat at Wave Farm, Oct. 29, 2005. With Michelle Nagai, Robbin Gheesling, Andrea Williams, Andrea Callard, Ben Owen, Andrea Polli, Chuck Varga, David Watson, and Edmund Mooney. These NYSAE artists speak about their own practices, and the various definitions of acoustic ecology (audio/mpeg, 5.6 MB)
  • Radio 4x4: Walker Art Center, Oct. 30, 2004. part of Radio, Access, Democracy conference (audio/mpeg, 56.9 MB)
  • Teach (In))): The Kitchen with students from Liberty Hight and Humanities Prep, April 23, 2004. Source material recorded and broadcast with ESL students in The Kitchen. Mono recordings made by Tom Mulligan and Ben Owen, mixed into a stereo document by Ben Owen. Track six on "Tune (In))) The Kitchen" CD (audio/mpeg, 781.1 KB)
  • Ben Owen: Live on BION, Feb. 26, 2004. From a performance at OfficeOps on free103point9 Online Radio and BION, the Brooklyn Interactive Outreach Network. Other performances that night included Sawako, the Beige Channel, and Radio Ruido + Ben Owen. (audio/mpeg, 28.5 MB)
  • BION: Epps, Graydon, Owen at Officeops, Dec. 11, 2003. Recorded live at OfficeOps, part of the BION weekly Thursday series free103point9 set up there 2002-2004. (audio/mpeg, 5.1 MB)
  • PS 122 Fourth Radio Cabaret, Nov. 25, 2003. Tianna Kennedy and Great Small Works put on this show at P.S. 122 with B Owen + Radio Ruido + Tom Roe + DJ Matt Mikas: "Radio 4 x 4" Each performing into a transmitter, mixed together with radios in the space, and LoVid, Gregory Whitehead "Geronimo's Curse," Anna Friz, Lucy Raven, and Coco Rosie. (audio/mpeg, 738 bytes)

Video

  • speech work, (untitled 080213), Feb. 14, 2008. ben owen and Justin Lincoln. For free103point9's contribution for a program of works for the Video Gentlemen’s BYOTV exhibition at the New American Art Union in Portland, Oregon. (video/mov, 6.4 MB)
  • untitled (5 in progress), Feb. 14, 2008. ben owen and Sarah Halpern. For free103point9's contribution for a program of works for the Video Gentlemen’s BYOTV exhibition at the New American Art Union in Portland, Oregon. (video/mov, 17.3 MB)
  • Tune(In))) The Kitchen, April 22, 2004. (excerpt) (video/mov, 36.3 MB)

Press, Programs, & Ephemera

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