Notes for Immersive Sound:
Our purpose in any sound installation work is to create a meditative space,
or a place for reflection. The aim is to make the listener feel safe while
at the same time provoking thought or contemplation on different aspects of
history and contemporary society.
Radio art often takes the familiar and mutates it to create a new listening
context. What does it mean to include the sounds of a telephone
conversation or a factory in an installation or broadcast? It is
interesting to work with the idea that these sounds are chants - patterns
taken from telecommunications technology, heavy industry, or other
electronic forms. The layers and interweavings of these patterns provide a
space for the listener to re-examine their relationship with sound and the
natural and unnatural forces which create the "noise".
The soundtrack for the Bregenz installation of "Divining for Lost Sound"
interweaves the original Divining soundtrack - based on the history of the
Trappist monks at Notre Dame des Prairies - with glimpses of a radio and
telecommunications art form - a contemporary medium that proposes an
idealistic global network that transcends the physical.
In any contemplative order, along with the spiritual, there is always a
strong connection to the physical. The Trappists spend their days in times
of prayer and times of hard labour. For Immersive Sound, our aim is to
manipulate the elements - the pieces of the network - in a way that
reflects this ongoing attempt at transcendence while maintaining a strong
connection to the physical.
Peter Courtemanche/Lori Weidenhammer, June 23/98 |
