About Sara

Baltimore City

Sara Dittrich is an interdisciplinary sculpture artist who builds introspective experiences that shift perspective from passive seeing to active looking, from passive hearing to active listening. Using musical thinking, Dittrich illuminates the dynamic and unconscious rhythms of the body and environments. The work is simultaneously gestural and architectonic: gestural in that it evokes the body’s expression in physical movement; architectonic, in that it occurs in a built… more

Arrhythmia of the Body

Arrhythmia of the Body is a series of twenty photographs documenting the artist's movements in a photographer’s studio while wearing a pair of absurdly large prosthetic hands and feet carefully crafted from papier-mâché and foam.

The clumsy and unwieldy prosthetics are designed to disrupt Dittrich's everyday movements in order to no longer take them for granted. Heightening the sense of these limbs and phalanges makes one not only care more for their body and its needs, but also their surrounding environment.

"We are only conscious of most of our rhythms when we begin to suffer from some irregularity." 
—Henri Lefebvre, Rhythmanalysis 


  • Arrhythmia of the Body
    Arrhythmia of the Body
    20 Digital C-prints / 8” x 10” in. each / 2015.
  • Arrhythmia of the Body #16
    Arrhythmia of the Body #16
    Digital C-print / 8"x10”in. / 2015.
  • Arrhythmia of the Body #4
    Arrhythmia of the Body #4
    Digital C-print / 8"x10”in. / 2015.
  • Arrhythmia of the Body #6
    Arrhythmia of the Body #6
    Digital C-print / 8"x10”in. / 2015.
  • Arrhythmia of the Body #10
    Arrhythmia of the Body #10
    Digital C-print / 8"x10”in. / 2015.
  • Arrhythmia of the Body #7
    Arrhythmia of the Body #7
    Digital C-print / 8"x10”in. / 2015.

Trio for Solo Contrabass

Trio for Solo Contrabass is a life-sized video projection that depicts two musicians and the artist working together to play a single pitch on the contrabass indefinitely using a two-meter long bow. The extended bow unifies the bodies into one being. In this video, multiple points of tension (hair of the bow, strings of the contrabass, muscles of the performers) precisely come together to create a meditative sound experience.

The continuous motion of the performers and unending sound creates a space to "just be" and feel present in the space. The work creates a moment for reflection on the communication and collaboration of the three bodies.

Projected life-size HD video (approx. 8’ x 15’ ft.) with 2-channel sound
Duration: loops indefinitely
  • Trio for Solo Contrabass (Excerpt)
    Projected life-size HD video (approx. 8’x16’ft) with surround sound / seamlessly loops indefinitely / 2013.

Score for Room

Score for Room is an experimental music notation installation that transforms the gallery into a participatory performance and composition studio. The entire floor, patterned to look like enlarged sheet music, accumulates the wears and tears of everyday rhythms. As visitors walk through the gallery, the sound of their footsteps are picked up by hidden floor sensors (contact mics) and emitted from an amplifier, producing a sonic architectural landscape. Over time, visitors’ footprints will mark and soil the paper, leaving a written record. Near the end of the installation, a musician is invited to translate the score underfoot into an audible composition as a live improvised performance.

This multimedia work recalls a range of historical precedents, from Allan Kaprow’s happenings and Alvin Lucier’s sound works, to the notational experiments of such Czech artists as Jan Sagl and Vladimir Havlik. Drawing on these contexts, Score for Room further investigates communal aspects of music creation, and aims to give a renewed awareness of the body to the viewer.
  • Installation view at beginning of exhibition
    Installation view at beginning of exhibition
    White and black construction paper, contact mics, wire, amplifier, the accumulation of dust, dirt and movements over a 5 week period while installed in an office/gallery space / 41’ x 34’ ft. / 2017.
  • Installation View
    Installation View
    White and black construction paper, contact mics, wire, amplifier, the accumulation of dust, dirt and movements over a 5 week period while installed in an office/gallery space / 41’ x 34’ ft. / 2017.
  • Installation View
    Installation View
    White and black construction paper, contact mics, wire, amplifier, the accumulation of dust, dirt and movements over a 5 week period while installed in an office/gallery space / 41’ x 34’ ft. / 2017.
  • View into the gallery
    View into the gallery
    White and black construction paper, contact mics, wire, amplifier, the accumulation of dust, dirt and movements over a 5 week period while installed in an office/gallery space / 41’ x 34’ ft. / 2017.
  • Musician Benjamin Buchanan performing at closing reception
    Musician Benjamin Buchanan performing at closing reception
    White and black construction paper, contact mics, wire, amplifier, the accumulation of dust, dirt and movements over a 5 week period while installed in an office/gallery space / 41’ x 34’ ft. / 2017.
  • Room Schematic
    Room Schematic
    White and black construction paper, contact mics, wire, amplifier, the accumulation of dust, dirt and movements over a 5 week period while installed in an office/gallery space / 41’ x 34’ ft. / 2017.

Going/Staying

Going/Staying is a performance/installation that uses long range bluetooth technology to send signals from pressure sensors in the artist’s shoes to a kick drum when the artist is within a 1 mile range of the drum. This technology enables an immediate real-time connection with no delay between the artist’s footsteps and the drum beating. The drum “plays” recorded data when the artist is not present.

The work investigates the unconscious everyday rhythm of walking. This awareness makes one more conscious of where they are and where they are going, and creates a new awareness and appreciation of these unconscious movements.

“He listens—and first to his body; he learns rhythm from it, in order consequently to appreciate external rhythms. His body serves him as a metronome.” — Henri Lefebvre, Rhythmanalysis 
  • Going/Staying
    "Going/Staying" is a performance/installation that uses long range bluetooth technology to send signals from pressure sensors in the artist’s shoes to a kick drum when the artist is within a 1 mile range of the drum. This technology enables an immediate real-time connection between the artist’s footsteps and the drum beating. The drum “plays” recorded data when artist is not present. / Duration variable / 2015-2017.

Physical Arrangement for String Quartet

In Physical Arrangement for String Quartet, musicians perform a new composition created by Benjamin Buchanan while placed in strenuous/precarious positions throughout the designated space. Using custom fabricated furniture, a cellist plays from a 9 ft. tall chair, a violist lays on their back on a bench, and two violinists lay against the floor.

The music composition employs contemporary and experimental genres, as well as cinematic qualities. Buchanan also enacts a plethora of extended techniques, which are unconventional or non-traditional methods of playing musical instruments used to obtain unusual sounds or timbres.

The composition and choreography amplifies each musician’s body in space and in relation to one another while providing a playful and meditative atmosphere where the norms of musical traditions are defied in an absurd fashion. Over time, the musicians learn to adapt and collaborate from their new postures.

Physical Arrangement of String Quartet was performed as part of the collaborative exhibition Symphony of Gestures, created by Dittrich and Buchanan at the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art within the context of ArtPrize, an international art competition based in Grand Rapids, MI that attracts over 500,000 visitors in a three week period. Symphony of Gestures was an ArtPrize Seven Public Vote Top 5 Finalist in the Time-based category.

Full duration: approx. 10 min.

*Special thanks to Zachary Graft, violin; Jenna Michael, violin; Elizabeth Boyce, viola; Willis Koa, cello; and the Urban Institute For Contemporary Arts
**Footage courtesy of the More Art Upstairs documentary film and director Jody Hassett Sanchez
  • Physical Arrangement for String Quartet (Excerpts)
    A performance choreographed by the artist using 2 violinists, 1 violist, 1 cellist, custom furniture fabricated by artist, and a custom composition by composer Benjamin Buchanan / Full duration 10min. / 2015.
  • Physical Arrangement For String Quartet (Full Version)
    A recorded performance from the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Michigan from 2015. The custom furniture was fabricated by the artist Sara Dittrich.
  • Physical Arrangement for String Quartet
    Physical Arrangement for String Quartet
    A performance choreographed by the artist using 2 violinists, 1 violist, 1 cellist, custom furniture fabricated by artist, and a custom composition by composer Benjamin Buchanan / Full duration 10min. / 2015.
  • Willis
    Willis
    A performance choreographed by the artist using 2 violinists, 1 violist, 1 cellist, custom furniture fabricated by artist, and a custom composition by composer Benjamin Buchanan / Full duration 10min. / 2015.
  • Zach
    Zach
    A performance choreographed by the artist using 2 violinists, 1 violist, 1 cellist, custom furniture fabricated by artist, and a custom composition by composer Benjamin Buchanan / Full duration 10min. / 2015.
  • Elizabeth
    Elizabeth
    A performance choreographed by the artist using 2 violinists, 1 violist, 1 cellist, custom furniture fabricated by artist, and a custom composition by composer Benjamin Buchanan / Full duration 10min. / 2015.
  • Jenna
    Jenna
    A performance choreographed by the artist using 2 violinists, 1 violist, 1 cellist, custom furniture fabricated by artist, and a custom composition by composer Benjamin Buchanan / Full duration 10min. / 2015.