The installation Process

After two weeks of work recording in the field the process of creating the installation began. Using the newest version of the mscape software I set out to create a sonic transposition of the two estates onto the space of the main lawns in front of the Queen's University buildings.




I began by creating a sort of spatial transposition of the two neighborhoods. Using the two lawns as the spaces of the two estates and the center walkway as a sort of metaphoric wall space, I created a matrix first of ambient recordings (street sounds) and then interspersed the recorded interviews at various points.

The aim was to achieve a sense of moving through the two estates, listening to their characteristic timbres, and along the way encountering the voices of the residents. Two factors are crucial here in creating a realistic experience. The binaural recordings create a realistic spatial sense of the acual acoustic environment and second the sounds are laid out in such a way that a sense of movement is conveyed - as overlapping loci (imagine sonic beacons with concentric circles radiating outward) which fade in and out as the listener approaches the locus.

This gives a sense of moving in and out of the audible range of events and spaces - crossing different acoustic horizons to borrow Barry Truax’s term. Within this matrix of horizons, the interviews exist as fixed sound events: they are triggered by entering a specific area and stop as you leave, resuming where they left off if re-entered. This is a very rough approximation of the kind of engagement that we might have with people in such a space: within a particular (close) range conversation would begin, breaking of as we move away, resuming as we return.

The layout is designed to create a fluid sound-space, a mobile phonographic experience. In this respect, the real substance of the piece is not actually in the sounds themselves but in the fact of their transposition. In transposing the Falls and Shankill soundcapes to an open (un-walled) space, there necessarily emerges some kind of meditation on the nature off the separation. Rather than theorise the results, I would like to open up the discussion to some of the people who participated in the project to comment on their experiences. Feel free to leave comments or send responses by email.