Giant Leap

San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, San Francisco, CA (2010)
Western Electric rotary phones, circa 1958;
Retrofitted antique Kodak darkroom light with back-lit acetate film print; speaker drivers & sound score.


Giant Leap pays tribute to the late Neil Armstrong, the first astronaut to walk on the moon in 1969. An anaglyph photograph of the moon flashes in view as a sound score plays from retrofitted rotary telephones, referencing NASA’s Apollo 11: the spaceflight which landed the first humans on the moon.

A letter, written by Nixon’s speech writer in the event that the mission would not be successful, accompanies the piece.

The letter was never used.