New Maps of Time sound workshop/residency Istanbul Turkey
‘New Maps of Time’ is a project and workshop about mapping architectural and urban spaces using sound as a means to express actions within a space. read more…
Workshop carried out in the frame of my X-OP residency at Apartment Project, artist-run project space, from February 8 – March 8, 2010
click the above Istanbul Sound Map to hear the recordings in Istanbul on Radio Aporee Maps
Some comments… It was both a pleasure and an adventure spending a month in Istanbul exploring the rich and often noisy environment of this great metropolis. The workshop went as well as could be expected especially considering how busy people are, making it a challenge to work continually as a group. Regardless, having a chance to collaborate with a diverse range of artists, musicians, architects and designers was always enjoyable and productive. I am thankful particularly to Muharrem Yıldırım, Onur Güngör, İdil Tunga, Natali Arslan, Nurgül Öztürk, Cansu Tolunay and Fulya Uçanok for taking time to share in our explorations of the city and work collaboratively in the process of sound making and recording. It’s also important to mention the generous efforts of the Apartment Project team for hosting and coordinating this workshop.
Some of the activities included in the workshop this month: building microphones (contact mics, hydrophones, binaurals), various city excursions to Maçka Park and Karaköy, trips to Burgazada and Heybeliada (islands), and a trip to Santralistanbul (Bilgi University campus). We concentrated on a wide range of activities as well, from passive analysis of soundscapes and acoustic architecture to active engagement with certain locations through objects and materials we found there. The gallery below is a small overview of these activities (photos by: Enise Gökbayrak, Onur Güngör, Muharrem Yıldırım and myself).
The Sound Locations channel on Vimeo has 6 videos of collaborative efforts made during the workshop. Here are a few highlights:
http://www.vimeo.com/9885001 http://www.vimeo.com/9883696 http://www.vimeo.com/9881049‘Islands’ a 14 minute film documenting trips to the Adalar (Prince’s Islands)
http://www.vimeo.com/9914212
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audio cultures, parallel worlds
In using sound as a departure point, we can easily drift into any number of fields, each with its own focus. Even though the medium is the same and concepts and techniques are shared, we end up with an array of different possibilities. With the simple formula of paying attention to sound, recording it, then editing it the result can end up being “art”(sound art, installation, experimental music), “science”(nature sound, acoustic ecology), “engineering”(acoustics, studio recording) or “entertainment”(film sound, sound design, radio) just to name a few. Apart from some random crossovers, it appears to me that each of these fields exists relatively independent from each other. Yet there is one defining link, the use and dependence on technology. There is one problem I’ve encountered during the process of giving sound workshop. Not everyone seems to understand the fundamental significance of sound, listening and our own cognitive process until you give them a microphone and a pair of headphones. How is it that it a technological interface helps so much to spark people’s imagination? I’ve often asked this for myself. If I’m so interested in acoustic perception, what’s the point to record anything at all? Yet I do and I’m quite deeply involved in using technology for recording and reproduction of sound.
Getting back to the various strands of audio cultures, I’ve come across some good “blogs”, particularly in the sound design field, of people who like to share what they record. It is possible that revealing some transparency in the process will help bridge some gaps between different fields. As people can see and hear more what goes on behind the scenes we can take note of some shared interests in the process, regardless of the outcome, particularly when it comes to thinking about awareness of our sound environments. On a side note… I’ve noticed that the various fields here tend to be male dominated. This is a topic for another post, but when giving workshops I see no evidence that interest and attention and creative ability to to work with sound has anything to do with gender.
Sound Design / Film Sound / Field Recording
Nature Sound / Acoustic Ecology
Misc. Projects and Resources
And to close, here’s a Newsweek article about audio ecologist Gordon Hempton’s work to raise awareness about silence and natural sound environments.