Arts professor explores sound in new exhibit

In 1999, before terrorist attacks destroyed the World Trade Center towers, Stephen Vitiello, assistant professor of kinetic imaging in the School of the Arts, held residency in a studio on the 91st floor of tower one. For six months the native New Yorker recorded sounds of the building moving. The irony is hard to escape.

That single residency, he said, changed his professional career. The soundtrack artist who composed music for movies, performing artists and the likes of Mikhail Baryshnikov earned recognition as a sound artist as well.

The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York acquired his sound installation-its first sound piece purchase in 30 years. In 2000 he also curated the sound art part of the Whitney Museum exhibition The American Century: Art and Culture 1950-2000.

Vitiello, who moved to Richmond last August, has shown his sound pieces at solo exhibitions around the country and in Paris and recorded around 10 albums, including “Bright and Dusty Things.”

Vitiello said he is also proud of his work with the Yanomami Indian tribes in Brazil, where he recorded hummingbirds.

In Surround Sound, his latest multi-channel exhibit showing in the School of the Arts Gallery, Vitiello explores the perceptual and physical properties of sound as a sculptural form. He said he uses a darkened room and a 5.1 sound system to “create sculptural works with concepts in sounds.”

“Partly, it’s an interest in the physicality of sound and the way sound changes our perception of a room,” Vitiello said.