A Space Thick with Place - Paul Hogan
- Overview -
I will produce an all day sound installation at Le Petit Versailles (Lower East
Side, between 2nd st. and Houston). that concludes with a live performance.
The sound sources are various park recordings from throughout New York City
that have been subtly edited and altered. In Le Petit Versailles, the playback
location of each park is related to the geographic locations of the parks themselves
(see map below). The individual pieces (5-8 of them) will loop at various lengths
throughout the day.
- Questions -
What defines the sonic identity of an urban green space? Why is the city park
sonically unique? What is a musical sense of place? Can one hear place? Why
does visualism dominate the idea of place? Can sound provide a way of knowing
a place? How do sound and image differ in defining a place? What is the effect
of combining different sonic spaces? How does the playback of distant sonic
spaces affect the imagination (images) of the viewer/listener? How do these
sonic spaces inluence the people who experience them? How do these sonic spaces
affect and shape someone's own music?
- Basic Goals and Compositional Fingerprints -
To be in these sonic spaces, recording, and listening in the fullest way. To
parse the sonic web of interlocking, overlapping, and alternating sounds from
each of the sources. To use the parsed sounds to create the new sonic space
in Le Petit Versailles. To create a blur between straight field recordings and
manipulated sound with subtle shifts in timbre and volume. To balance the playback
sounds with the real-life sounds of Le Petit Versailles, thus blurring the differences.
To maintain sufficient space in each of the 5-8 pieces so that the installation is not too dense (this is why parsing and editing of the field recordings is
necessary). To place the speakers in positions relative the the geographic locations
of the parks themselves. To hide the speakers from sight as much as possible.
To provide maps to the visitors that show the location of each park's "sound
world" within Le Petit Versailles. To develop a strong understanding of the
sonic geography of the individual parks and the final installation. To compose
new music that is informed and inspired by this understanding. To close the
installation by performing this new music along with it.
- Tech Specs -
5 to 8 CD players 10 to 16 speakers (5 to 8 stereo pairs)
Pictures from Le Petit Versailles
A map that will be distributed to the visitors.
