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Vestiges spotlight: "Score for LOC Call Numbers" by Angela Driscoll

The sound of the Vorhoff Library stacks

Department: Other Events

Crystal Kile

Posted November 4, 2008

Angela Driscoll
Score for LOC Call Numbers 2008
Paper, wood, portable CD player with headphones


Listen to a 30-second except of the piece (MP3 provided by the artist)

This piece is part of The Vestiges Project exhibition LOSS. RITUAL. RELIC. Residue: The Archive at NCCROW November 1, 2008 - February 28, 2009. For additional information – including exhibition hours and links to other spotlight pieces – please refer the main article about the show.


The artist's statement:

The way we gather and organize knowledge determines how we react to a world increasingly dominated by databases of information. Our challenge is in how we systemize data to maintain accessibility. We arrange information and patterns emerge.

In Score for LOC Call Numbers, patterns are represented both visually and aurally, reinforcing the innate beauty within systems of information, specifically the Library of Congress call numbers in one library aisle. Within the context of a library as a building to house knowledge, we are more aware of how complex systems need a flexible structure to sort the immense amount of new information that is exponentially available. I have created an information aesthetic that reinforces the inherent patterns within this method of categorization.

The books within one aisle of the Nadine Vorhoff Library [first floor, Newcomb College Center for Research on Women, Caroline Richardson Hall] are wrapped in paper, the spine of each marked with a visual code directly correlating to the call number. This code directly dictates the score and the music that comes from this data set. The music can be listened to while simultaneously viewing the score on the book spines. The self-reflexivity of this work forces one to look not at the knowledge contained within each book, but at the system – in this case, the Library of Congress call numbers – that is used to arrange the texts.

– Angela Driscoll



Perspective Shot I


Perspective Shot II: Guests reading artist statement during opening reception for Vestiges exhibit


Vorhoff Librarian Bea Calvert invites Tulane University Provost Michael Bernstein to have a listen, December 2008