presented Sept 7-19 at SOP (MFA 2022 State of Practice Exhibition)
12 minute looping track
Materials: 360 degree sound edit, voice, movement, ambisonic sound, and binaural recordings
In classical composition the third movement in a symphony is often a dance or a musical joke. It’s a momentary interlude that allows for more flexible interpretation. As the third sound installation in my exploration, the invitation in the third movement is to experience sound in spaces, to be surprised, and to situate within the work; as a trio between sound, space and self.
the third movement considers the boundaries of the self, musical expectancy, and the tethers of reality through a track composed over seven separate listening experiences. Hung on plinths of varying dimensions and orientations throughout the installation, the headphones are arranged loosely in the order the track develops. The audience is invited to move through the installation and put on the different headphones, each featuring a looped section of the track with a specific condition for listening. At different heights and facings, the length of the headphone cords helps to indicate the intended position and location of the body, while the cushions encourage the listener to resign to the floor. The listeners then have the potential to populate the space, each occupying a specific location in relation to each other, while having an individual experience. The installation creates a situation that is constantly permeated.
I address the space between people by occupying the perceived auditory/kinesthetic space with sound, which the listener enters through headphones. The headphone cord represents a tethering to the site of the present experience while musical development, dialogue, perceptible movement and the site-specific, past sonic events project another reality.
The third movement was created using ambisonic sound, binaural recordings of site specific sonic events within a 360 degree sound edit. I edited drones, samples and voice recordings to move autonomously in 360 space. Movement is a durational position. Stretching the expression of a beat and vocal loop over time makes available the details of the contributing sounds.
I created a track to be experienced by the body in a communal setting. The track develops through 7 sound concepts. As the audience moves deeper into the installation, they are participating in the progression of the piece in time and space. Binaural and ambisonic sound produces 360 space within the kinesphere of the individual listener while the headphones allow for the experience to live within the body of the viewer with an allocentric perspective.
The first set of headphones features a site specific soundscape that is intended to be experience specifically in this space. This audio was recorded at the exact site that it is presented allowing for an all-too-credible reenactment of past audible events.
Even having designed and recorded these events doesn’t spare me from the trickery!
The final track lies as far into the installation as you go. It functions as a site-specific outro, proposing questions that the listener may take with them. This track was recorded while wearing in-ear binaural microphones, offering a chance to embody the speech as their own.