D'Alessandro's immersive stereophonic audio piece transports listeners into a unique environment where they can hear first-hand what it sounds like to get inside the ring for a competition boxing bout. The creative interpretation of a boxer's physical and mental landscape was created through an orchestrated mashup of appropriated sourced audio samples found online and original ones captured by D'Alessandro with binaural recording equipment mounted to her headgear. The competition rounds attempt to highlight and quantify the physical sounds of the blows, the breathing, and the grunts.

During the interval breaks, D'Alessandro takes a creative approach to depict the mental battle that ensues between rounds, resulting in a disorienting direction-shifting overlay of advice derived from transcriptions of her YouTube-posted training sessions with boxing coaches across the nation. The resulting audio work remixes genres, audio samples, and even media as it has existed as an immersive installation at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum in CA, and now as a stereophonic audio piece for the 2011 Re/Mixed Media Festival in NY.

Why Boxing?
Having participated in the 2010 Re/Mixed Media Festival, Desiree D'Alessandro went on to embrace remixing via the genres of Art and Athleticism as she explores boxing as her latest artistic medium. Her works have ranged from athletic vinyl banners, found object displays in the gear and equipment associated with the sport, endurance performances in collaboration with influential boxing figures, and waged bouts on a self-constructed, fully dressed ring as a type or artistic performance and vice versa.

The sport of boxing resonates with D'Alessandro for several reasons: (1) It has had a profound impact on her relationship with her father, who was a fighter and watched televised fights with her since she was a child, (2) It is a potent topic in terms of contemporary sports and gender studies as Women's Boxing is debuting in the 2012 London Olympics and (3) The personal, intimate, and individual nature of the sport is captivating as a metaphor for battles we all must face.

Bio:
Desiree D'Alessandro is an artist from Tampa, FL who recently earned her MFA degree as a Regents Special Fellow from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has exhibited works at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Ca:, the Brevard Art Museum in Melbourne, Fl; Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Fl; and the Contemporary Art Museum and the Tampa Museum of Art in Tampa, Fl.

Additionally, her recent video works have been screened at venues such as the RE/Mixed Media Festival 2010 Brooklyn, NY; Rogue Political Remix Festival, Fresno, CA; Gallery 25, Fresno, CA; ARC Gallery & IMAX Dome Theater, Tampa, FL; Victoria Independent Film & Video Festival, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; Version 8 Festival 08, Chicago, IL; and the Festival of the Moving Image, Tampa, Fl.