TS: […] Doesn’t this sort of echo the work you did when you produced P.A. at the Park Avenue Armory? The distribution of sounds in that work happened more through a mechanical dispersal–by means of loudspeakers–than through choreographed bodies. But there was a gorgeous way that voices and textures seemed to emerge out of the corners of the architecture, and it was startling when I realized what the sources of these sounds were–art fairs and military drills that you had succeeded in recording.

MR: Yeah, I don’t know how one could miss the interpenetration of art sites, commerce, and the support structures of our quasi-police state, especially since 9/11. In 2002, I did a work for the reopening of the Winter Garden, which had been demolished when the towers came down. There have been so many moments when I’ve realized the politics of the sites I’ve been invited to occupy are right there, unmistakable. The Park Avenue Armory, which has been an incredible supporter of my work, actually has a rule where, in the event of a state of emergency, the government can immediately commandeer it and use it for what it actually is: a drill hall, a staging site for police, soldiers, the national guard, or whomever. It’s also probably the most extraordinary acoustic space in New York.

— Marina Rosenfeld and Tristan Shepherd, Fall 2016, BOMB