Jonathan Sterne in The Audible Past states that "Sounds come to us, but vision travels to its object” and “Hearing involves physical contact with the outside world, vision requires distance from it.”

Meant as sonic land art, SIGHT Specific is a mixed media sound and visual installation intentionally developed for the MAINTENANT exterior property and internal barn space. Eight experimental sound design pieces were composed specifically for pinpointed listening stations throughout the 25-acre property for passive or active headphone immersion.

TJ Tambellini is a Los Angeles based artist and experimental musician, who explores photography through sculptural composition and vivid complementing palettes, revealing understated moments in the often inanimate, overly habitual landscapes. TJ’s visual work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, published in books by Pomegranate Press and Kiosk, self-released several books, and has been featured in Printed Pages, Justified, It’s Nice That, Booooooom, and Paper Journal. The majority of this work is captured in California and the American Southwest, with an attraction to local flora, sculptural moments, and hi and lo desert towns.

As an experimental musician and sound designer, often using the alias Topian Xome, TJ Tambellini creates immersive sonic experiences that are both meditative and reflective. Drawing on a wide range of techniques, from analog and digital synthesis to field recordings and generative sequencing, TJ creates ambient, environmental, and cinematic textures that are meant to be experienced on both a passive and active level.

TJ is also a founding member and contributor to Volutus Records, a label and collective of Chicago and Los Angeles based artists and musicians. In 2022, TJ and the other founders of Volutus Records traveled to the MAINTENANT property in Marfa for a week-long residency of avant improvisational recordings, performance, and visual experiments all within the interior and exterior of the MAINTENANT barn.

Photos by TJ Tambellini, Sarah Vasquez.