Steven Hammer is looking forward to a slow summer listening to the wind.
Currently commuting between his home in Fargo and Pittsburgh, where he serves as a professor of communication and media studies at St. Joseph’s University, Hammer bridges academic rigor with experimental audio art, and the results are a poetic love song dedicated to what Hammer refers to as “anti-realism.”
“I’m interested in the ways we can foreground sound in art and in our lives,” Hammer said. “And because we live in a visually-dominant era, I usually try to accomplish this by making familiar sounds unfamiliar and imperceptible sounds the center of attention.”
The search for sound takes Hammer across the globe. A couple years ago, for example, he traveled pretty extensively recording the sounds of subways.
Watch: Artist Steven Hammer record sounds from a Toronto subway.
“As a daily subway user in Philadelphia when I’m there working, I’ve always loved the richness of sound in these public (moving) spaces,” he said. “The heavy machinery, electricity. The social elements, the community that forms on public transit.”
It’s a long and lonely commute between Fargo and Pittsburgh, but constant travel is part of the journey for Hammer, who will travel to all ends of the Earth to find the sound he’s been searching for.
Today, with 35,000 followers on Instagram alone, it’s clear Hammer is striking a chord across the globe with his approach to sound art. Much in the style of sound pioneers like Christina Kubisch and Toshiya Tsunoda, Hammer’s ambient-esque aural poetry mingles the sound of air with other materials, making a unique vibration that has become a hallmark of Hammer’s unique style.
Whether he’s mentoring students in storytelling fundamentals or placing microphones in unexpected places (think sewer grates and in between beach rocks), Hammer continually pursues fresh, immersive ways of hearing the world. And the world is better for it.
LISTEN: Hammer’s sound on Bandcamp
The sound of teaching
Hammer, who is an NDSU graduate, said what he teaches is by the book, for the most part.
“The majority of my students are learning to do small-scale media production, especially in nonprofit contexts, so my goal is to help them become excellent storytellers and lifelong learners of evolving production technologies,” he said.
Even though a lot of his work is rooted in anti-realism, Hammer is grateful to keep practicing the basics and modeling good work for his students, including creative collaboration.
“There’s truly always more to learn,” he said. “When some students become more advanced, I often invite them into my projects or join theirs in a mentorship capacity. I worked with one student this year on a travel-based field recording project, and they released some excellent work and have gone on to create a small label upon graduation.”
In this way, Hammer’s gig in higher education has been an ideal “day job” because it helps remind him what it was like to be just finding your voice as an artist.
“Teaching gives me a consistent link to having a ‘beginner’s mind’ as well as spending a lot of time with creative people,” he said.
The sound of transit
Being located in Pittsburgh gives Hammer easier access to transcontinental flights and other travel opportunities, which allowed him to travel extensively recording the sounds of urban subways.
As a result of those travels, Hammer released a collection called Balconies which were taken from balcony perspectives in Kyoto, Japan and Lisboa, Portugal.
“I always look for excuses to put mics where ears could never venture—down a sewer grate, in between rocks on the beach, in bottles,” Hammer said.
Inspired by the work of German artist Christina Kubisch, a pioneer of sound art, he continues to be on the lookout for the “hidden sounds in a technologically-saturated world,” he said.
WATCH: Hammer uses various musical instruments to complement his unique ambient style
The sound of challenge
Hammer was the recipient of a grant from The Arts Partnership to support what he calls, “a really difficult but interesting recording project.”
A collection of wind.
“If you’ve worked much with microphones or audio recording, you know that wind is sort of the enemy of the recordist,” Hammer said. “Wind on the diaphragm of a microphone means almost certain distortion and clipping.”
And within that sound, Hammer intimates, is a kind of hidden music with a message.
“The wind we typically hear really isn’t wind at all, it’s the material that the wind moves or touches,” Hammer said.
The sound of home
This summer, Hammer plans to stay put in Fargo for the most part.
“I love a slow summer here,” he said, adding that he’ll spend free time recording something we have plenty of around here: wind.
“Recording the wind is really looking for relationships in the world between air, sound and material. It’s as amazing as it is frustrating, because the level of wind necessary for sound is very close to the level of wind that will distort the recording,” he said. “But I like a challenge.”
Hammer’s wind project will come out mid-summer on Bandcamp, and streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify.
Of course, there are other projects to button up and a goal to “Get as much sun as I can.” Hammer doesn’t have any lives shows booked yet, but he plans to announce dates on social media under patchbaydoor.
Stay in touch with artist Steven Hammer by following him on Instagram.
