Celia Hollander is a Los Angeles based composer and artist working with audio, scores, performance, installation and text. Her work critically engages ways that audio and the act of listening can shape temporal perception and cultivate social connection. Her work has been performed or installed at institutions and venues including MOCA, The Getty, Skirball Cultural Art Center, Various Small Fires, Human Resources and Zebulon. Her discography includes releases on Leaving Records, Recital and Noumenal Loom and she is a resident DJ on Dublab Radio.
To All Trains is an expression of striving to fathom the full scope of the interdependent networks that we inhabit and create at multiple scales. Originally commissioned by MetroArt LA as part of their Soundscape series, To All Trains takes inspiration from Union Station as the largest railroad terminal hub in the western part of the US The piece begins from the perspective of an individual navigating a crowd in a train station, expands to view the organised chaos of the crowd from afar, and then expands further to perceive a vast national network of trains, leading to a global network of planes, and beyond.
Today music is both listened to in its shortest increments while also over the longest durations. Music media has gotten increasingly shorter (from records to tapes, CDs, MP3s, and 15 second videos on tiktok). Simultaneously, more people are listening to more music over longer durations with the aid of algorithmic, bottomless playlists on streaming services and a cultural compulsion to complement or boost any activity or space with background music. To listen to a singular piece of music, with full awareness and attention, is the inverse of both of these extremes. It’s both a form of resistance and surrender. Listening with intention resists passive consumption and grasping for entertainment or distraction, while simultaneously opening one to the subtle observations of presence, both internally and externally.