The Taos Hum, 2010
HD video, colour, sound, 35 minutes

Excerpt: 7 minutes 25 seconds
The Taos Hum production 09
Photos: Tina Larkin
The Taos Hum still 11
Stills from video
The Taos Hum production 03
Photo: Tina Larkin
The Taos Hum at BALTIC
Cage Mix: Sculpture & Sound
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, 2010
Photo: Colin Davison

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.

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