Sound plays an important role in the way we perceive our surroundings. Visiting a place with our ears closed is like cutting out fifty percent of the experience. Without hearing the ambiance and the sounds of a place is like watching a film without its soundtrack, where as beautiful as the visuals are, it seems to lack atmosphere.
When thinking about a landscape, no matter what kind it is [an urban landscape or a green landscape etc], the first thing that comes into mind is the sound that describes it and an image. There is no specific image or place one would think about – it depends on the person-, but there definitely is a specific assemblage of sounds accompanying that image and those sounds are most of the time similar from one person to another. This is why in my opinion sound is as important as image in realizing architecture, or realizing the event of architecture. Artists, architects, sound designers, filmmakers and many others interested in the sounds that surround us, have visited this subject of landscaping sound within their work.
Tempo Reale [which is Italian for ʻreal timeʼ], is Florenceʼs world famous high- tech music research centre. It was founded by Luciano Berio in 1987 and is now one of the main European reference points for research, production and educational activities in the field of new musical technologies. The vast subjects of research the Centre focuses on are proof of how they have a polyhedral attitude towards music. They study things like: the real time sound processing and interaction between sound and space, the conception of great musical events, the synergy between creativity, scientific competence, performance and education. The Centre collaborates with many sound artists, performers and architects and takes part in many festivals around the world introducing a new way of sound thinking and perceiving. One of their most recent works that can be related to landscape architecture is ʻThe Table of Earthʼ. In this production the collaboration was between Damiano Meacci, who was the sound designer and interactive systems coordinator, and David Moss an American performer who was the voice and performer of the project.
ʻThe Table of Earthʼ project is a table where on it are placed objects, cables, instruments, sensors, microphones and recycled items. (fig. 1)
Fig. 1. David Moss performing with the table objects
All of these items are used by David Moss at the moment of his performance to build a strong narrative path, a real “sound story”, that is accompanied by text and readings that allow listeners to follow a personal and surprising experience while watching Moss “play” with the items supplied on the table. The sounds created by moving objects; recording and replaying the sounds that Moss performs, and generally the use of everything at the table, all seem to represent earthly sounds. Creating sounds of ground, water, wood and so on. But as it continues on it moves to something much more complicated and interesting which feels more like transportation to another world.
Looking at a table full of gadgets, Moss builds landscapes that continue evolving consistently following the changes in sound, or perhaps the other way around. The performance becomes so vivid and alive from this explosion of sounds that it drags the audience into it and becomes food for their imagination to create their own landscape in their mind. ʻThe Table of Earthʼ is a beautiful representation of how sound is orchestrated through a field of objects [landscape].
Furthermore, another practice that deals with sound, art and architecture is one called Liminal. Through sound, art and architecture they create projects with innovative spatial soundscapes and architectural interventions developed for their acoustic properties. Liminal is a collaboration between David Prior who is a composer and Frances Crow who is an architect. An example of their work is ʻOrgan of Cortiʼ, a recent project that in September 2010 received a PRSF New Music Award at the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. The project takes its name from the organ of hearing in the inner ear; the ʻOrgan of Cortiʼ is a portable structure which envelopes an audience.
“When sited somewhere rich in broadband noise; whether this is traffic, moving water or wind, the ʻOrgan of Cortiʼ filters the noise creating subtle shifting harmonies depending on both the external sound source and the position of the listener in relation to it. (fig. 2) The ʻOrgan of Cortiʼ is based on the acoustic phenomena of sonic crystals consisting of arrays of cylinders sized and spaced according to the frequency bands they are designed to act upon.”
(Liminal, 2010)
Fig. 2. Diagram showing how sound tranquilizes through the cylinders.
Each array is designed accordingly to each place, or sound character of the place if you will. (fig. 3) This way each piece of music is unique just like each site is unique. It is an accessible and playful sound sculpture that reminds fairground organs, and inspires creativeness out of the already existing.
Fig. 3. People observing the ʻOrgan of Cortiʼ
This project of Liminal follows their ʻTranquillity is a State of mindʼ project of 2008 which was a research based project aiming to create an intervention on a site that creates a reflexive listening experience. “By getting a better understanding of the physiological and neurological causes of tinnitus (unwanted sounds in the ear) and learning about audiological techniques used for its treatment, we hoped to be in a better position to understand the link between our physical response to unwanted sound and our environment.”
In 2009 the group organized a four day cycle ride called ʻDiagnosing the Sound of the Landscape: A Sound Cycle Ride,ʼ where they rode their bicycles from Worcester to Cricklade and invited local residents to join them and listen to the landscape surveying and recording their perceptions. Different locations of the route introduced different sounds, they tried methods for hearing the sounds better, or blocking the sounds and tried to understand which parts of the sites/landscapes were acting as tranquilizers to the sounds that are heard there. They established a clear relationship between sound, environment and how they both also relate to health and well-being.
Both Liminal and Tempo Reale deal with the relationship between sound, architecture and art and have been influential to those interested in the subject. Their work is a good example of how sound should be realized within architecture and how it should be given more attention because it can be as important as the visual effect or the tactility a building has. In my project ʻSounds of a Marshlandʼ I tried to introduce this relationship and used extraterrestrial sounds [to the landscape] that relate to the stories that lie behind the siteʼs history. The sounds in my project act as transporters to a memory of what the site used to be. Moreover, by enhancing the soundscape of the first part of my path, when the visitor moves to the second part of the path, they are now without any additional sounds but they are searching for them, therefore, this allows them to realize sounds that in the beginning they probably would not.
Websites:
Liminal (2010) Liminal – Sound / Art / Architecture
(Accessed on 25.01.11)
Sustrans (2010) Sustrans.
(accessed on 25.01.11)
Images:
Fig. 1. David Moss performing with the table objects. (2010) From: THE TABLE OF EARTH – David Moss & Tempo Reale [video still] Italy: Tempo Reale
Fig. 2. Diagram showing how sound tranquilizes through the cylinders. (2010) From: The Organ of Corty by liminal, Winner of PRS for Music Foundation New Music Award 2010 [video still] UK: PRSFMusic
Fig. 3. People observing the ʻOrgan of Cortiʼ. (2010) From: The Organ of Corty by liminal, Winner of PRS for Music Foundation New Music Award 2010 [video still] UK: PRSFMusic