Usit - Nature Vivante

Auditory additions in an existing urban environment Urban Sound Institute at Centre Culturel Suédois, June 7-30, 2006

Three sound installations form a sequence from the entrance, through the gallery and out into the garden on the back side of the building. The beginning and the end connect to separate streets with their sound environment shifting through the day and night. The middle room is an enclosed space, more dominant in character and opening towards the two others spaces (the entrance and the garden). All sounds have been morphed, transformed and transplanted, creating a shifting space with reference to focus, scale and character.

The entrance space is a mix of several social sounds, e.g. from beaches and restaurants, with some accents from the origin of all language formations, so-called proto-language, dating back to the oldest form of Sumerian.

The middle gallery starts from white noise filtered out and transformed through pink noise into different natural sounds and urban environments of wind and water with the ambition to disclose their narrative aspects and increase their spatial effect. The sub-woofers and the 120 small loudspeakers on the floor have frequencies below audible range but can be experienced through their slight movements.

The garden is an enhanced or intensified "nature" where the environment and signal sounds aim to create a kind of auditory ambivalence and enhancement.

A few visual accents are included in the spatial compositions: The umbrella with the resting chairs at the entrance, the silent film in the café; the sub-woofers with sand/salt and the formation of small loudspeakers on the floor in the gallery; the "fountain" in the garden and the visual gap through the gate towards the street.

This project discusses
1. Listening perspectives: How do the auditory additions affect the modes of listening (passive / active / qualitative)?

2. Site and non-site specific: How do the auditory additions merge or stand out from the environment? How are confrontations and connections between site-specific and non site-specific sounds experienced?

3. Cultural codes; gesture and artistic approach: Can cultural codes be discussed here? Are the sonic additions or the main scope in any way exotic with regard to the French culture? Can the artistic approach be experienced as Nordic? In what way would this be different from a French sound-art tradition?

4. How are these auditory spaces constructed and experienced, e.g. spatial sounds related to spatial construction, narrative sounds (sound events) and sonic signals?

5. Auditive and visual: How abstract or how narrative are the auditory spatial constructions and signals? How abstract or concrete are the visual signals? What happens in this interaction?

6. Time: How can the auditory additions and spatial constructions be experienced in relation to time - as compositional sequences; as installations lasting 6 hours/day during one month?

http://www.usit.nu