ADAM SONDERBERG

The two sides of page f, “installation” and “composite,” use personal archival material to explore therapeutic counseling. 

Patient / client confidentiality is the utmost concern for counseling professionals, and the sound screen machines placed outside office doors are a ubiquitous feature in many facilities; they help to ensure privacy to those in-session via a veil of white noise. 

I consider side 1, “Installation,” the more voyeuristic of the two pieces, “placing” the listener in an approximated waiting room. Adam’s mix of white noise, encroaching incidental environmental sounds, and voices creates a space where privacy issues loom large: what is the difference between hearing and listening? What is the human desire to piece together a satisfactory narrative when that narrative is concealed? What resolution, satisfaction, or insight does one hope to uncover by linking the elements to produce—accurate or otherwise—a narrative?

The “Composite” side explores this question further and manipulates the experience more directly: the legibility of the voices is reduced and brought into greater focus through discreet processing; the chorus of white noise aggressively denies disclosure. This side, for me, creates an environment not unlike Z’EV’s uns project where “information,” almost reluctantly, presents itself: the listener must willingly bring engagement to the experience and, at the same time, be comfortable fending for themselves.

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