Rupture Installation at Santorini

I was a participating sound artist at the May 2015 Aural Lighthouses symposium in Santorini, Greece. As the brochure explains:

Curated by Ileana Drinovan-Nomikos, the event hosts artists and scholars from around the world including Greece, United States, India,United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and Italy. Sound artists and atmospheric scientists are brought together to evoke the emotional, affective and visceral responses of sound and frequency, and their effect beyond what scientifically manifests in graphs and images. The symposium explores human aural performance and how we make and create disaster sounds to seem natural and to fade into a perceived inaudibility. The works further explore the oscillation between apprehensive, stressed, distressed and relaxed listening, and so the difference between dread and the beauty of disaster listening.

My contribution was a four-channel immersive sound work, constructed from sonic materials that were part of my 2012 City of Melbourne public art work, Revoicing the Striated Soundscape. Unfortunately I couldn’t attend the conference but I was lucky enough to receive this feedback from the symposium co-coordinator, Ljubi Matic.

Rupture was played publicly starting from Tuesday May 19th, 2015 through Saturday May 23rd, 2015, every day for at least 4 afternoon and early evening hours. A separate room, approximately 4×4 meters large, was dedicated to the piece. Santozeum is a conglomerate of rooms of different sizes on several floors, so the audience could ramble around the space walking in and out during the pieces and taking in different sound events at their leisure. In the room where Rupture was listened to, there were 4 paintings on the walls, copies of the wall paintings of Akrotiri (an ancient site on Santorini). The speakers were located on the ground, in the 4 corners of the room. The audience was not seated (as I think you had originally suggested) because we thought that chairs would make the space too cramped. However, some listeners felt inclined to sit down while listening, on the ground and next to the speakers, and then rotate their position during their listening session. This rotation could and did happen quite quickly as the speakers were not too far from each other. The room, smaller than what is a typical gallery space, thus, I think, brought a special sensitivity to auditors’ 4-way movements. Those among the listeners who did not have the chance to read the info found in the brochure had not been informed about the type and provenance of the sounds you had created and used for the installation. Upon learning that, some came for the second time. An audience member told me he felt listening to Rupture transported him above the ground, to a flight of sorts, that is, flights of different kinds, some more or less comfortable, others evoking situations of fleeing and mobilization for war. Another one compared the listening experience to a “slow-motion of gigantic waves” with “abrupt abysses of silence (ruptures?) gaping from the oceanic expanse.” A third one was struck by the “compulsiveness” she sensed in the sounds of machinic origins as well as in her urge to stay put in the room and listen to them. The presence of ancient human and animal figures on the wall paintings gave a special twist to the experience at those moments where your composition brought breaths, sighs and strange (gutural?) sounds to the fore. It almost felt like anthropomorphic auricular traces were being uncovered from the strata of our machinic past, or like some kind of otherworldly communication was under way. Santorini, after all, is all about multifarious geological layers. Must be same for Melbourne and thank you for making us become aware of that.

I was also sent some photographs of the exhibition. Fascinating to consider Melbourne’s laneway sounds finding a home in the island of Santorini!

Read Full Post »

Revoicing the Striated Soundscape

Revoicing the Striated Soundscape is a sound installation commissioned by the City of Melbourne (COM) as part of the 2012 Public Art Program. Public information provided by COM regarding the artwork can be found here. An article focusing on Public Art in Melbourne in the Age Newspaper wrote extensively about Revoicing the Striated Soundscape. I also want to throw in a couple of extra points using my blog, for those who are planning on checking out the installation.

Installation site: unnamed laneway behind RMIT bookshop, Little Latrobe St.

I am calling this an invisible installation, as the four air-conditioning units bolted to the wall are easily mistaken for permanent features that house actual air conditioners. It is the intention for this impression to emerge, as it reflects the everyday experience of urban dwellers who pass a multitude of air-conditioners everyday. The visual aspect of these machines are ignored as much as the consistent drones of these machines are blocked out. It is only when the unusual sounds emitted by these four machines are perceived that the air-conditioning units come into focus. I have seen people looking for the sound source, sometimes refusing to believe that it could come from the air-conditioners. As such the artwork plays with perceptions of the everyday.

All the sounds are recorded in the laneway itself. So the installation knits into the existing soundscape such that the border between installation and soundscape is uncertain. The sounds have been composed using a multi-speaker system so sounds at times move through the space from one side of the laneway to the other. If you do go down stand in the centre of the four air-cons. This is the “sweet spot” to perceive maximum movement. Also standing under each individual air-con can be an interesting aural shift as you will receive the direct sound from the accompanying speaker.

This is a work that requires some time and immersive listening to appreciate. In fact multiple visits are ideal. It was designed so that people who walk through the space daily will get a slightly different experience each time. There are eight compositions totaling 90 minutes played on a permanent loop, though the loop is random; that is all eight compositions play before the loop starts again, but each loop will play the compositions in a different order. Some compositions are quite jarring such as the sounds of bins being dragged around, or doors opening and closing. Others are immersive, referencing wind and water sounds. Some others are rhythmic with sounds fully processed or just raw air-con sounds dancing around the space. So if you have the time, a full loop is best! The installation is active seven days a week from 10am – 10pm, and will be in place till late November.

Read Full Post »