“There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.”
― John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings
Whilst working on this project, I have regularly recalled observations by Tim Ingold who refers to Mind-Walking, walking through different timescales and imagination.
As I pull threads of this project together through the residency I find myself lost in possibility, thinking in different timescales. My drawing has taken on new layers, lines of connection are being created through new materials and a focused opportunity to consider encounters of the last two years research.
Watching, listening and imagining opened up a new awareness of my own body and what happens when I walk. Listening to unheard sonic landscapes has been a fundamental element of this.
This week I had the gift of working for two days with Phill Phelps, electroaccoustic musician living and working in Bristol. Working together in the gallery Phill’s unique understanding of sonic landscapes revealed sonic traces and energies present in our everyday environments, and importantly, specifically in the building of AirSpace itself.
In an extension of my drawings in the gallery we set up a series of vibration tests to explore the visualization of the resonance frequencies captured.
Working collaboratively with Phill, ideas, sounds and images have moved back and forth between us. Our creative responses shifting understanding and extending the possibilities my installations can create.
On a previous visit to the gallery, we captured sonic traces and usually inaudible sounds of the building to combine with recordings of natural phenomena such as underground vibrations and fluid in motion.
Variations in light, recorded and replayed as sound variations in magnetic fields, captured in and around the gallery building with electromagnetic coils. Some recordings are of phenomena too slow or too rapid to be detected as sound, these are replayed with higher or slower speed so that their ‘voice’ may be heard by our ears.
A sonic landscape is installed in the gallery, to sit alongside my drawing responses. Combined, they create layers of experience to explore how our walking bodies move connecting to the pulse and rhythms of place.
Sound clip of the sonic landscape installed in the gallery can be heard on the link here.
Best listened using headphones.
