Santa Barbara County is blessed to have passionate interests, matched with an ample patronage base, when it comes to the important issue of land conservation. One of the more recent success stories on that front came to pass with the White Buffalo Land Trust, on the vast 1,000-acre piece of idyllic real estate known as Jalama Canyon Ranch, on the rugged and winding road to Jalama Beach.
More to the point, the philosophy behind the land acquisition was to treat it less like “real estate” and more like cherishable land worthy of reverence and conservation. (See Independent story here .) The very experience and on-the-ground reality of the place and the project has been very much on the mind and plans of composer and conceptual land artist Nathan Sherwood Liang lately.
Liang is a San Francisco–based sound artist and musician who has channeled his artistry and passion for environmental issues — and the environment itself — into projects that cull music, sounds literally lifted from landscapes, and ambient impressions into audio-visual works. He began a six-week residency at Jalama Canyon Ranch in mid-April and has been gathering field recordings and conceptual data, building up toward a culminating public performance on the afternoon of Saturday, May 23.
