By Steven Psyllos

Born in Brooklyn, lives in Virginia. Began his exploration of music in 1978 in a punk rock band. In 1989, started collaborating with video and visual artists. Spent 10 years creating soundtracks in support of other artists before being asked to do his first solo installation piece by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon, France. In 1999, Vitiello was offered a six-month site-specific sound installation on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center, a seminal moment in his career. His latest work, The Smallest of Wings, captures and juxtaposes the sounds of moth wings with hummingbirds from the Amazon. Aural sculptor.

What is your relationship with your art? I treat sound as a poetic form. I go from project to project and take the experience of the sound and how it hits me emotionally then try to create environments that offer something of that initial response back. For example, when I did the World Trade Center recordings, I expected they would be mixed with musical sounds and synthesized but then I heard them and they were so strong that there was nothing I could do to keep up with them, so in respect for these giant buildings and this very solitary experience of recording them, it was more about slightly shaping the sound rather than changing it.

When you set out on a new project, do you have an idea in mind or does it grow organically? I start out with an idea, a catalyst of sorts to get me moving, but it is almost always in opposition to what I end up with.

How do you know when the work is done? There's this moment when you know. The way I work is start with almost clutter and start taking away this and that until I get down to the core idea.

Describe how you use technology to reacquaint people with the minutiae. There's times when you have an idea and you seek out the technology that allows you to make that possible. For example, for this show I needed very specific microphones to get the sound of hummingbirds. And then you will have those pieces where you get this piece of technology that inspires an idea. For me, it's about drawing one's ear to details in the landscape. Almost asking people to train their ear the way they would their eye. Like a camera focusing in on that little creature a hundred feet away. We know we can do it with the eye or with technology but not with the ear. What other people might consider ambiance has real beauty when brought to the foreground.

The Smallest of Wings can be experienced through Feb. 26 at The Project Gallery at 37 W. 57th St. (betw. 5th & 6th Aves.), 212-688-4673; Tues.-Sat., 10-6; free.