Every day sounds and silences from Turku
Sound workshop, four channel sound installation and performance
During November 21-29 2009 I invited people living in Turku, Finland to collect their everyday sounds and silences. During that time 21 persons were participating with the restriction that they were only allowed to record sounds from their side of Aura river, which is the river that runs through the centre of Turku. The participants borrowed sound recording equipment from me. I also asked every one of them to record at least one space they consider being silent.
The result is a big collection of sounds and silences from both sides of Aura river which was played in a four channel installation at Gallery Titanik in Turku in December 2009 as part of the Sonic Sunrises group exhibition.
Some of the sounds were also used during the opening of the exhbition in an open sound battle performance between the different sides of Aura river.
The sounds in the collection are of very different nature. Some are recordings of spaces and some recordings of specific sounding objects. Many of the sounds reveals pieces of the collectors everyday life.
I had a dialogue with each one participating in the project about their sounds and silences. There was a lot to talk about since obviously sound play an important part in our lives and there is a lot to listen to if you just start to listen. We also also discussed silence. A shared experience was that it was difficult to find silent spaces. Especially when trying to capture the silence with sound recording equipment.
The collection of sounds and silences are available in the library of Gallery Titanik.
Google map with spots where sound has been collected for this project.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
I will present some of my work done in MaxMsp on Monday December 7th at 5pm in gallery Muu in Helsinki. This is part of a course in interactive sound work.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
My project Åbo-Turku Sound Dialogue is on show in gallery Titanik until December 13th. There was an article about the exhibition in the local newspaper Åbo Underättelser and they published some of the sounds from Åbo that I use in the installation. Listen.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
On Thursday December 3rd is the opening of the group exhibition Sonic Sunrises in Gallery Titanik in Turku, Finland. I am taking part with my project Åbo-Turku Sound Dialogue where I have invited people living in Turku to collect sounds. More about that later.
Also in the exhibition:
Ellen Sofie Griegel: ”Myriagon” – light and sound installation
Janna Holmstedt: “Environmental Dependency Syndrome” – audiovisual installation
Kristoffer Myskja: “Centrifugal sound device” – motorized sound installation
The event on Facebook (with description)
Thursday, November 12, 2009
This week I am running my Locative Sound workshop in Medialab Helsinki. We have so far been talking about and listening to works that deal with location and sound and doing a soundwalk in the Helsinki center. Now the participants are out recording and will present their pieces tomorrow.
Some sounds will hopefully end up on the Freesound Helsinki map.
IMPROVe is a workshop method for listening to and working with everyday sounds.
It involves different modes of listening which ranges from pure listening to one’s surroundings to collecting of sound objects to improvisation with the collected sounds.
The essence is to explore different modes of listening to our reality and to be more aware of all the sounds that surrounds us in our daily life. Also to discuss and explore musical structures through simple musical improvisation with sounds.
IMPROVe started out as a collaborative project with Zeenath Hasan in 2007. It is now mostly carried out as sound-workshops in various places. At the moment with focus on young people in cities in west Sweden.
The IMPROVe workshops throughout west Sweden have genereted a large collection of sounds from different cities. Some of the workshops have resulted in soundmaps and an online-soundmap is under construction.
A workshop can take from 2 hours up to a few days depending on context and interest. It can be organized from a group of a few people up to a group as big as 30 people. Workshops has been carried out with 10 year olds up to 70 years old. Contact me at <richard.widerberg at gmail dot com> for workshop requests.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Just arrived to Åbo, Finland. Going to be here for a month’s Sumu residency at the Titanik Gallery. Also going for a few days to Medialab in Helsinki to run my Locative Sound workshop during this time.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Today I am presenting my work-in-progress-map of sounds from Västra Götaland which is the region around Gothenburg. I have been running IMPROVe workshops during a few months collecting sounds together with young people of the region.
The sounds will be published at Freesound in a near future.
The presentation is part of the festival Listen to the world in Gothenburg and the presentation takes place at Röhsska design museum in Gothenburg.
After the presentation I perform with my new duo Trapped in a loop in the same museum.
Recordings of the ice of the lake Sången in Hällefors, Sweden. “Sången” means the song.
Singing ice is recorded with a contact microphone frozen inside the lake.
What you hear is the lake’s ice constantly moving as it is reacting to itself and outside changes.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Every day sounds and silences from Turku
