Created for a single audio speaker in a large public space, this audio installation works at framing and punctuating the struggle to control our acoustic surroundings and be heard above the communal din. It consists of twenty-four 1-hour tracks running sequentially in the space at a matching ambient volume level. Like Still(ness) Ringing, this installation also works at blurring the listener’s ability to distinguish between the naturally-occurring sounds in a physical space and programmed or pre-recorded sounds.
Commissioned by Art Gallery of York University’s Audio Out exhibition series
Gallery note: A good shushing (like your grandmother probably used to give you), is like an arrow shot through shared airspace. It pulls focus away from self-obsessed interior gazing and casts it out into the world, framing and punctuating the contribution each of us makes to the collective soundscape of the commons.
A good shushing can also wake you up – if only for a moment – to the struggle that each of us experiences in trying to control our surroundings and be heard above the communal din.
Many elements in this work were first presented as part of (((Cocktail Party Effect))) ‘The Audio Waiters’, a guerrilla performance project, produced and performed in collaboration with InterArts Matrix. Both of these works are available for presentation in other spaces and situations.
©Richard Windeyer 2010
Richard C. Windeyer 