The Taos Hum (2010)
HD video, colour, sound
35 minutes (excerpt: 7 minutes 25 seconds)
The Taos Hum positions sound as a central motif from the very first scene and may seem like a conventional documentary. However, the film does not endeavour to offer any answers - in fact, nothing is really asked of it. Instead, ‘the hum’ becomes a countermelody to a chorus of voices offered by the landscape and its inhabitants.
What the film does assert is that the inhabitants of Taos, a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico, have a uniquely reciprocal relationship to the sounds around them; extremely elusive tones are heard, communicated and are then performed back as an anthology of practices ranging from sonic healing to opera, from furniture-making to instrument-making.
Images show stills from the film as well as production shots by Tina Larkin for Taos News.
Click here for an article written by Chandra Johnson for Taos News, April 2009
Click here for a review written by David Ryan for Art Monthly, November 2010
The Taos Hum was first show as part of Cage Mix at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead and has since been shown at Wysing Art Centre, Cambridge and Southard Reid Gallery, London.
© Sam Belinfante 2010