While at the
Time_Place_Space 5 workshop, I met with Darrell Buckley from the
Elision Ensemble to discuss this suspect backpack project.
Through this discussion a number of points arose, which were triggered from
Scanner and Darrell's presentation of the provocations: "the labrynth" and "the vanishing point". One of the works used to illustrate the notion of the vanishing point was
Alvin Lucier's "I am sitting in a room" (1970) a tape piece where Alvin records his own voice and the acoustics of the room over and over until his voice is obscured.
I was originally considering recording a range of different audio recordings about people's different backpack/luggage stories, particularly those related to any kind of security issue. However through this discussion, i've realised that having all of these voices is potentially another project in itself (perhaps a radio work?) and that i should focus on and drill down on the content of
this work. I'm also not interested in having a narrative structure to the sound work, more of an abstract sonic environment that the user can explore.
I'd like to use a short recording (two sentences, ideally) of just one voice. The voice of whom is still TBA, but I feel that it is necessary for this voice to represent the concept of the work as a whole. I may need to enlist the help of Scanner to realise this... which I did mention to him while he was in Australia, but this too needs to be confirmed...
In navigating the sound environment, the notions of obscuring, and bringing into focus the sonic qualities of the voice. Relating back to the concept of the work itself, people are often judged by their appearance alone. As part of the
Time_Place_Space workshop, Shigeaki proposed a work that required us to carry out an intervention into Brisbane society - based around unbearable (and bearable) stereotypes. Our group took this to mean cultural stereotypes. During the intervention - where we asked people on the street to guess our nationality - this was often taken to mean whether we were Australian. In trying to make these guesses, the people we interviewed often asked to hear our voice (our accent) to help them determine whether we were "Australian" or from elsewhere.
This for me highlighted something in relation to the forming of stereotypes. They are often formed based on a visual, however a great deal of the telltale information is transmitted sonically (via our accent). When a "security" issue arises - our modes of communication are clamped down upon, and the first mode of communication that (the majority) would use without thinking would be the voice. So it is this obscuring and bringing into focus a message that I feel should be the content for the work. However i do not want this to be a literal approach as if in a goal-driven game environment.
How this message is navigated I am still working through, particuarly in its relation to proximity.
Labels: alvin lucier, darrell buckley, intent, scanner, time_place_space
