Soundpedro: Charivari

It’s a little hard to explain sound art – it’s not music, but a series of installations and performances featuring sound experiences at their core. The annual Soundpedro event – put on by Long Beach art collective FLOOD – this year honors the theme of “charivari,” a word derived from Latin, which is “sometimes used to make a statement or protest (think clanging pots and pans).” We know, it sounds a little weird, but then the descriptions of the pieces featured sound really cool and transportive – like Akari Komura’s “In a flock,” which captures the soundscape of a Tokyo train station and “a repetitive bird call opens and closes the piece, moving from synthetic digital signal to a real animal call in the natural environment.” The event takes over several gallery spaces at Angels Gate Cultural Center, a former military outpost, now home to more than 50 artist studios and an amphitheater.