Perruel forest session 1 : with Thomas Tilly, Patrick McGinley, Maksims Shentelevs, Paulo Raposo, Johanna Lonka and myself (5:38): Perruel forest session 1

Perruel forest session 2 : with Eric Cordier, Patrick McGinley, Maksims Shentelevs, Johanna Lonka and myself (4:32): Perruel forest session 2

I’ve spent the past few weeks in France visiting with Patrick McGinley who has generously offered his temporary residence as a gathering place for friends, many of whom are avid sound recordists. Naturally those who came started to explore the local area for interesting locations. Patrick and myself went out early to work on some collaborative material, while in the second week additional people came (Jonathan Coleclough, Thomas Tilly, Maksims Shentelevs, Paulo Raposo). Our primary location was a metal bridge that crossed the nearby Andelle river. A number of different recordings were made by each person using metal and nylon wires, hydrophones and open air mics. The recording below was made using a metal wire that hung over the side of the bridge.

wires from bridge on the Andelle, France (2:50): mp3 file

The other location we explored was in a tributary of the Andelle. This place was a shallow water crossing that allowed us to wade in the water. Patrick and I set up waterharps while others worked with hydrophones. Thomas Tilly made some on the most impressive hydrophone recordings I’ve hear, picking up sound from underwater instects and possible fish. Below is a sample from one of my waterharp recordings.

a waterharp in the Andelle, France (3:14): a waterharp in the Andelle

deep resonance inside old oil tanks, the view from the tanks above looking out to the Baltic sea: mp3 file

group improvisation inside the bunker, those present in the bunker session- Maksims Shentelevs, Toomas Thetloff, Kaspars Kalninš, Jekabs Nimanis, Johanna Lonka and myself: mp3 file

An urban research group in Tartu was looking at the phenomenon of urban exploration. I suggested to make a small trip somewhere in the city. Out of a few interesting possibilities we decided on the former meat factory, a site full of urban legends, as it is fairly central and easily accessible. This meat factory stopped production some time in the early 1990s but the evidence of their production is still visible everywhere. On the third floor there are literally rooms filled with piles of bones from what appeared to be sheep. The rest of the building is mostly trashed. It seems to be a popular to practice graffiti and make fires. The highlight was the view from the roof and being able to make a few sound recordings with the group.

One important idea for me is to not only explore these types of hidden or abandoned spaces, but to instigate some creative activity while visiting. While abandoned spaces may not be valuable for the society, they offer creative potential for the individual, who often forgets how much the everyday social codes, laws and regulations of the urban environment confines their mode of living. Once these boundaries or removed, even the very experience of navigating and sensing the urban space must be reconsidered, opening potentials for more creative exploration (however short or ephemeral). These two recordings give some idea on how working with sound can allow one to interact with the material objects and forms of the space. The first case was more of a simple walking action on the broken glass while the second was more of an improvisation with all the available materials throughout the space.

former meat factory – walking action (3:20) Tartu, Estonia: urban expoliration01

former meat factory – sound action (7:28) Tartu, Estonia: urban exploration02

Special thanks to Sven and the others from Linnaseminar for this trip. Also, Tanel Saimre from Tartu has a nice page of binaural recordings made around Tartu. He has a recording of the same sound action but from another angle (his head!). Tanel Siamre recording

UPDATE: Nov. 5th 2008 – the former meat factory has been demolished. Someone said they wanted to convert it into apartments or something, but I think it needs to be torn down before anything new is built there.

I’ve been taking advantage of the mild winter weather so far to do some site-specific recordings. Its normal that I visit various old ruins and natural locations in the countryside, but recently I’ve been going into old houses that have been abandoned for some time. It should be noted that after Estonian independence in the early 90s there was a trend for younger people to leave the countryside to move to the cities or even abroad to seek out a new life. As many old people were left behind there was no turnover to the next generation leaving many holes in rural life after the elderly pass away. Some families attempt to keep the old houses as summer homes while others are simply abandoned. With the value of land rising rapidly the trend may be reversing however.

Making recordings in these spaces is in some ways an attempt to capture the sense of decay that exists in the voids where life once existed. I find the silence that exists in these spaces to be more than an absence of sound. There is a sort of shadowy resonance that exists in the objects and walls that were left behind. When one interacts with these objects and infuses the space with sound this hollow resonant feeling comes out along with sound itself. This is particularly so with old houses, maybe because of the relation and character that people take on with their homes. This is clearly different than the feeling in old factories and industrial spaces (one could argue that its simply the lack of resonance in small rooms, but I feel there is more going on being a “foreign” presence in the space). Nevertheless, going into these spaces offers a chance to infuse some faint feeling of “life” through the sounds.

The recordings will be used for an upcoming release in 2008.

Riga Sound Locations was a four day workshop that took place at various spaces around the city of Riga, Latvia. The project starts with the concept of site-specific artistic activity while integrating contemporary sound recording practices that cover areas of “performance”, “field recording”, “improvisation” and “documentation”. With the site being the prime focus, the artist as actor and instigator uses the means of sound to investigate the qualities of of the surrounding space and his or place in it. Riga Sound Locations (”Rīgas Skaņu Vietas“) was a workshop conducted from August 14-16th at various sites around Riga and was organized by Maksims Shentelevs and myself in cooperation with NOASS. The aim of the workshop was to visit 6 different locations around the city in order to investigate site-specific sound activity related to each place. These activities would be recorded and filmed to document each intervention. A group of about 6 people went out each day to see what could be found that was unique to each locations. The sites included an abandoned apartment, construction site, former power station, abandoned warehouse, old military airport and a backyard. Apart from the backyard all of these locations were temporary in the sense that they either being developed or destroyed at some point in the near future. So not only were we documenting our activities we attempted to capture the transitional feeling of the spaces.

day 1, at an abandoned flat across the Daugava river.

day 1, 25 stories up on the roof of a new skyscraper

day 1, Jekabs tries to contact mic a noisy construction elevator

day 2, playing found plates at an empty factory space

day 2, ringing hanging pipes at an empty factory space

day 2, exploring the steam turbine at the former Riga power station

day 3, rolling ceramic insulators at an abandoned military air hangar

day 3, improvising with found objects in an abandoned air hangar

day 3, an improv session in the backyard

day 4, returning to the former power station

day 4, Patrick McGinley joins in to play the steam turbine wheel

The video recordings were edited and presented as an installation at the SKAN sound art event in Riga from September 26th to October 13th.

Former Riga Power Station (2:02) Riga, August 2007: Download Link

Former Military Airplaine Hangar (2:08) Riga, August 2007: Download Link

Backyard Improvidation (2:20) Riga, August 2007: Download Link

participants included: John Grzinich, Toomas Thetloff, Maksims Šenteļevs, Jēkabs Nīmanis, Kaspars Kalniņš, Gints Birznieks, Ivars Šmits, Ivars Gravlējs, Mārtiņš Strautnieks (Martines Gonzales), Jānis Biķis, Kaspars Groševs, Patrick McGinley, Johanna Lonka

Check the Sound Locations channel on Vimeo for more documentation

Click here to view the embedded video.

For the month of September visual and sound artist Jim Haynes was in the MoKS residency. Towards the end of the month we made an excursion with Jim and fellow artist Toomas Thetloff to one of my favorite “lost” places in Estonia, the former collective farm site known as “Avangard” (yes, that was its name). Avangard is about a 20 minute drive north of Tartu and is now mostly a collection of old barns, decaying structures and small local industries. Nonetheless the place provides us with a number of possibilities for site-specific sound activites. Last year, along with Toomas, Patrick McGinley and Hitoshi Kojo we made a special performance evening at Avangard on the occasion of the traditional Estonian “jaanipäaev” or mid-summer day as well as several earlier recording sessions.

On this visit I was particularly drawn to the abundance of decaying and rusted metal on the numerous structures around the site. It may have been because of Jim’s interest in rusting and corrosive processes that are prevalent in his visual work of which I have an interest but have never worked with directly. Interestingly one of the stories told by Jim at his artist talk at Y-Gallery in Tartu, was about attempting to translate the rusting process into sound by somehow recording it. Although he explained his attempts were not entirely successful the idea is intriguing. The next best thing then, is to maybe use rust itself as a sound element in exploring the surfaces and textures of resonant objects. This is part of what was happening in our last session at Avangard. So besides the macro images I captured with my camera (above), there was a certain degree of rusted textures that found their way into our sonic explorations. I’m posting a few excerpts from our recordings below.

Avangard Rust 1 (4:25) Estonia, September 2007: Download Link

Avangard Rust 2 (2:50) Estonia, September 2007: Download Link

The Riga Sound Locations project starts with the concept of site-specific artistic activity while integrating contemporary sound recording practices that cover areas of “performance”, “field recording”, “improvisation” and “documentation”. With the site being the prime focus, the artist as actor and instigator uses the means of sound to investigate the qualities of of the surrounding space and his or place in it.

Riga Sound Locations (“Rīgas Skaņu Vietas“) was a workshop conducted from August 14-16th at various sites around Riga and was organized by Maksims Shentelevs and myself in cooperation with NOASS. The aim of the workshop was to visit 6 different locations around the city in order to investigate site-specific sound activity related to each place. These activities would be recorded and filmed to document each intervention. A group of about 6 people went out each day to see what could be found that was unique to each locations. The sites included an abandoned apartment, construction site, former power station, abandoned warehouse, old military airport and a backyard. Apart from the backyard all of these locations were temporary in the sense that they either being developed or destroyed at some point in the near future. So not only were we documenting our activities we attempted to capture the transitional feeling of the spaces. Below are some sample recordings of the improvised sessions from the workshop.

The video recordings will be edited and presented as an installation at the SKAN sound art event in Riga on September 26th and 28th.

Former Riga Power Station (2:02) Riga, August 2007: Download Link

Former Military Airplane Hangar (2:08) Riga, August 2007: Download Link

Backyard Improvisation (2:20) Riga, August 2007: Download Link

participants included: John Grzinich, Toomas Thetloff, Maksims Šenteļevs, Jēkabs Nīmanis, Kaspars Kalniņš, Gints Birznieks, Ivars Šmits, Ivars Gravlējs, Mārtiņš Strautnieks (Martines Gonzales), Jānis Biķis, Kaspars Groševs, Patrick McGinley, Johanna Lonka