walk to work
Layered recordings made weekly as I walked to my office during the 14 weeks I was lecturing in human computer interaction at UQ.
I was struck by the three distinct zones of the soundscape: cemetery, bridge, University and wanted to bring out that structure by layering multiple recordings to make the specifics of each environment more obvious .
The path took me through the cemetery, across a bridge over the Brisbane River, then through the grounds of the University to my office in GP South.
The recordings were aligned to the end of the walk when I opened my office door. The walking time was surprisingly consistent at about 20:30 +/- 30secs
Layered recordings made weekly as I walked to my office during the 14 weeks I was lecturing in human computer interaction at UQ.
I was struck by the three distinct zones of the soundscape: cemetery, bridge, University and wanted to bring out that structure by layering multiple recordings to make the specifics of each environment more obvious .
The path took me through the cemetery, across a bridge over the Brisbane River, then through the grounds of the University to my office in GP South.
The recordings were aligned to the end of the walk when I opened my office door. The walking time was surprisingly consistent at about 20:30 +/- 30secs
brighton bag walk
In 2006 I was a visiting research fellow at Sussex Uni. We stayed in apartments on the Lewes Rd near to the old town.
Brighton is a tourist town and the sound of people wandering along the lanes, bag trundling over the cobbles behind them, was ever present.
Before leaving I made the journey from the train station to our flat, bag mic'd up. It took a few goes to get a recording as the vibrations of the bag kept turning the recorder off. eventualy, recorder in pocket, wires trailing to the two mics that were attached to the bag with alligator clips, bright red balls of windscreen on each, I had some success.
Later,I wondered what someone might have thought at the sight of a middle aged man wandering up and down, back and forth, dragging a bag with a couple of red balls on it, cables trailing into his jacket pocket. Not much I imagine, it's an eccentric and accepting town.
In 2006 I was a visiting research fellow at Sussex Uni. We stayed in apartments on the Lewes Rd near to the old town.
Brighton is a tourist town and the sound of people wandering along the lanes, bag trundling over the cobbles behind them, was ever present.
Before leaving I made the journey from the train station to our flat, bag mic'd up. It took a few goes to get a recording as the vibrations of the bag kept turning the recorder off. eventualy, recorder in pocket, wires trailing to the two mics that were attached to the bag with alligator clips, bright red balls of windscreen on each, I had some success.
Later,I wondered what someone might have thought at the sight of a middle aged man wandering up and down, back and forth, dragging a bag with a couple of red balls on it, cables trailing into his jacket pocket. Not much I imagine, it's an eccentric and accepting town.
across the road
Owning a home is fundamental to achieving any sort of status within Australian society. Most often a new homeowner will have to renovate or knock down the existing house to make one that is fitting with expectations.
Complaints about building noise are often made but how noisy is having a house built for the neighbours? As it turns out not very - most noise is in the early stages when deliveries are made. The actual building work is not that noisy - or at least not that noisy that often.
I recorded a house being built for an hour every Tuesday morning (at about 10:00 am) for 28 weeks. The mics were setup across the road - that is, as a neighbour would hear it, not as one of the builders on site would hear it (although the buildres were happy for me to do that if I wanted to.)
Each week provides about 20 secs of both background drone and individual spot sounds. The background was developed by applying surrogate data methods from time series analysis to music by taking a representative sample from that week, randomising the phase of the FFT of that sound, then taking the IFFT, to give a noise sample that represented the average spectrum (but not the dynamical structure) for that week. This was then convolved with representative sounds of whatever the building activity of that week was to give a representative drone.
Overlaid on top of the background drone are spot sounds that seemed to me to represent the normal sounds of that week. A lot of work went in to analysing the weekly recordings and making sure that what was included in the final piece was representative rather than unique.
The density of the sounds is determined by a drawing the builder made of the activity cycle across the entire building period.
Owning a home is fundamental to achieving any sort of status within Australian society. Most often a new homeowner will have to renovate or knock down the existing house to make one that is fitting with expectations.
Complaints about building noise are often made but how noisy is having a house built for the neighbours? As it turns out not very - most noise is in the early stages when deliveries are made. The actual building work is not that noisy - or at least not that noisy that often.
I recorded a house being built for an hour every Tuesday morning (at about 10:00 am) for 28 weeks. The mics were setup across the road - that is, as a neighbour would hear it, not as one of the builders on site would hear it (although the buildres were happy for me to do that if I wanted to.)
Each week provides about 20 secs of both background drone and individual spot sounds. The background was developed by applying surrogate data methods from time series analysis to music by taking a representative sample from that week, randomising the phase of the FFT of that sound, then taking the IFFT, to give a noise sample that represented the average spectrum (but not the dynamical structure) for that week. This was then convolved with representative sounds of whatever the building activity of that week was to give a representative drone.
Overlaid on top of the background drone are spot sounds that seemed to me to represent the normal sounds of that week. A lot of work went in to analysing the weekly recordings and making sure that what was included in the final piece was representative rather than unique.
The density of the sounds is determined by a drawing the builder made of the activity cycle across the entire building period.