Bouncing off the Walls: Exploring architectural acoustics and the sculptural potential of sound and redundant technology

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This project involves a research residency at Beaconsfield, a central London gallery dedicated to providing 'a critical space for creative enquiry' and with a reputation for innovative work through programmes involving artists as diverse as Gustav Metzger, Bob and Roberta Smith and Leafcutter John. I have been invited to develop a new site-specific, sculptural sound installation, working within the space for 6 weeks, during which time the gallery will be open to the public 2 days per week. Rather than installing a preconceived work, I will respond to the acoustic characteristics of the space, specifically its resonant frequencies, the way it acts as an acoustic filter for sounds arriving from beyond its walls and the way it in turn shapes and reflects sounds produced within it. Rather than bring pre-recorded sounds into the space, I will create synthetic sounds from scratch in response to the soundscape of the space and use a pianola as the only other source of sound. I will use a (still growing) collection of approximately 300 discarded but working domestic hi-fi speakers which, like the pianola, are redundant cultural icons that speak directly of the ongoing evolution of the way we listen. I will also use a flexible high-level sound diffusion system called the AudioBox, allowing me to create an immersive soundscape in which sound will move through the space on precise, independent trajectories. The speakers themselves, no longer restricted to the function for which they were manufactured, will become sculptural building blocks. The speaker sculptures will reach into corners and up to the 7-metre high ceiling, and the sound will return to the listeners' ears filtered by the extraordinary acoustics of this former Ragged School for deprived children. Its rich history and remarkable architecture, combined with the experience of the curators with sound art make Beaconsfield the ideal location for this research.The only visual elements in the installation will be the devices and equipment required to produce sound (amplifiers, speakers, pianola, a kilometre of speaker cable). The physical forms of the sculpture will affect sound, and sound will, in turn influence the form. The orientation of the speakers will affect the listeners' experience of the sound, while the physical structures into which the speakers are constructed will be influenced by the particular effect they have on sound and its spatialisation. As the work-in-progress develops, connections between sculptural processes and sounding results will be revealed and exploited.The pianola will be used not in a musical way but visually as a sculptural element, and sonically as a kind of tone generator to probe the resonant acoustics of the gallery space. I will work with a piano tuner to tune the instrument to the resonant frequencies of the space. Whatever music roll that comes with the pianola (there are always many on eBay) will be modified so that it plays only the notes that excite the resonant frequencies of the highly reverberant gallery space. The finished piece will hover on the border of sound and music, playing on the aura of the absent/redundant performer and on the 'personalities' of the gatherings of discarded speakers, as projected through their design, their marks of use and misuse, the modifications carried out by their owners, and even the odours some of them still carry from their former locations in smoky pubs, damp garages, dusty lofts, etc.In contrast to the redundancy of the speakers and the pianola, the arrangement of sound in this piece will be made possible through the use of the AudioBox, an immensely powerful, sound diffusion technology which will allow me to move sound across up to 64 channels and through arrangements of hundreds of speakers. I will be reconfiguring the system, which is normally used for complex surround sound in major theatre productions, to develop its potential for experiemental sound art.