My time is increasingly spent thinking about sound.
Apart from my day job (see first entry) and my night/weekend job (see second entry), I also get to think about how sound intersects with play.
My first playground sound installation at Wombat Bend playspace, at Finns Reserve in Templestowe, was a kind of beta-testing for this thinking. There are two arrangements of two-channel speaker sets installed onsite, one set in a 'wilderness' planting on the playfround periphery, the second within a maze.
As someone with an interest in acoustic ecology, I am concerned that electronic sound invades all aspects of childrens' lives as it is, so I was dubious about inserting it into playgrounds as well. However, by embedding the soundscape into the landscape features (one speaker is a possum box, another a log) and having locally recorded birdsong in mostly contextually-appropriate arrangements (except for the chicken that somehow ended up in the tree) this soundscape enhances rather than anaesthetises. In a different way, the interactive installation in the maze creates a community of sound which the kids trigger through touch panels. The recordings were taken with kids from local primary schools who were encouraged to improvise, sing, and fart with abandon. Many of the sounds are simple, genuine, contagious giggling.
The designer of the playground, Ric McConaghy, has asked me to work with him on upcoming playgrounds. I hope that the ideas that are starting to seed in my mind about sound design and public place - allowing space for spontaneity and avoiding the trap of overdetermination so common to contemporary urban design - will flower in these upcoming projects.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
research at stars
My work is nearly done for the magnificent project Yelling at Stars, Australia's first interstellar message. It will be performed live at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on May 31 at 9pm, recorded and streamed live to Deep Space Communications in Florida, and beamed four light years into space. Its free so you should come.
The research component is now seeing the light of day on the website www.yellingatstars.com, with new chapters coming online every few days in the lead up to the show. These chapters represent months of research into topics as titillating as the history of interstellar messaging, questions of message composition and ethics, the development of an artistic practice to match the scale of space, semiotics and meaning in interstellar messaging, linguistic archaeology and the search for the 'fundamental' language, space art and other enormously fun things.
Apart from the joy of working with Willoh S Weiland (director, writer, performer) and Pip Norman (sound design/composition, and my husband), has been the great opportunities arising from the project.
Most exciting on the horizon is the success of our submission to the Less Remote Symposium in Glasgow later this year, which means we will be presenting findings from the project to this symposium on space and the humanities. This will be my first presentation at a symposium, and my first funded academic jaunt. Hopefully I will also incorporate my Soundscape Research (see previous entry) into the travel, with some visits to members of the International Urban Soundscape Research Group in Denmark, France, Germany, and elsewhere.
This project also represents my first big Art, and my first time on stage as a performer since the 1994 Rock Eisteddfod where I danced as a jockey.
When I stop to think about it, my real fear is standing on stage at the Bowl - a very very big stage - not the prospect of being eliminated in nanoseconds by superintelligent entities offended by our taste in sound art.
The research component is now seeing the light of day on the website www.yellingatstars.com, with new chapters coming online every few days in the lead up to the show. These chapters represent months of research into topics as titillating as the history of interstellar messaging, questions of message composition and ethics, the development of an artistic practice to match the scale of space, semiotics and meaning in interstellar messaging, linguistic archaeology and the search for the 'fundamental' language, space art and other enormously fun things.
Apart from the joy of working with Willoh S Weiland (director, writer, performer) and Pip Norman (sound design/composition, and my husband), has been the great opportunities arising from the project.
Most exciting on the horizon is the success of our submission to the Less Remote Symposium in Glasgow later this year, which means we will be presenting findings from the project to this symposium on space and the humanities. This will be my first presentation at a symposium, and my first funded academic jaunt. Hopefully I will also incorporate my Soundscape Research (see previous entry) into the travel, with some visits to members of the International Urban Soundscape Research Group in Denmark, France, Germany, and elsewhere.
This project also represents my first big Art, and my first time on stage as a performer since the 1994 Rock Eisteddfod where I danced as a jockey.
When I stop to think about it, my real fear is standing on stage at the Bowl - a very very big stage - not the prospect of being eliminated in nanoseconds by superintelligent entities offended by our taste in sound art.
starting sound research
I have officially become a sound researcher, starting at SIAL Sound Studio as a research assistant on the Urban Soundscape Project.
The project will develop case studies of the five Melbourne soundscape systems (located at Southbank, Northbank, ACMI, Federation Square, and Birrarung Marr). The intention is to analyse the history of each system, placing them in a contextual milieu of public art and urban design, and assess their functionality and opportunities for improvement.
This is an intensely pan-disciplinary research project with intersections across urban design, geography, public art, management theory, acoustic ecology, architecture, sound design, new marketing, environmental psychology and auditory culture.
As a human geographer with some experience in sound design and arts, this is still a stretch out of my comfort zone. More than anything else, the challenge is in the sorting and arrangement of information into clusters that make sense and are accessible.
I am learning non-linear information management programs including Devonthink and Tinderbox, and while I don't doubt they will become my indispensible scaffolding, they are intimidating to begin with.
I have made this work transition from a small pond (local council) with linear management and ideas, so the prospect of arranging my thoughts non-linearly is both a breath of fresh air and a shock to my inner conservative. In fact, every element of this job is the opposite of my old one. I am now outcome oriented and self-managing, guided by a mentor team. I no longer sweat on being late to the office, and now happily take my work home. I also am much more critical of myself, and focused on the quality of my work. It is a hugely welcome change.
The project will develop case studies of the five Melbourne soundscape systems (located at Southbank, Northbank, ACMI, Federation Square, and Birrarung Marr). The intention is to analyse the history of each system, placing them in a contextual milieu of public art and urban design, and assess their functionality and opportunities for improvement.
This is an intensely pan-disciplinary research project with intersections across urban design, geography, public art, management theory, acoustic ecology, architecture, sound design, new marketing, environmental psychology and auditory culture.
As a human geographer with some experience in sound design and arts, this is still a stretch out of my comfort zone. More than anything else, the challenge is in the sorting and arrangement of information into clusters that make sense and are accessible.
I am learning non-linear information management programs including Devonthink and Tinderbox, and while I don't doubt they will become my indispensible scaffolding, they are intimidating to begin with.
I have made this work transition from a small pond (local council) with linear management and ideas, so the prospect of arranging my thoughts non-linearly is both a breath of fresh air and a shock to my inner conservative. In fact, every element of this job is the opposite of my old one. I am now outcome oriented and self-managing, guided by a mentor team. I no longer sweat on being late to the office, and now happily take my work home. I also am much more critical of myself, and focused on the quality of my work. It is a hugely welcome change.
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