A VIVO Media Arts Centre + Vancouver New Music + SFU MFA Coproduction
sound.garden.scape
by Eric Powell
The installation will run 15 + 16 May 2008 | 7pm – 10 pm
17 May 2008 | 2 pm – 9pm; with a hosted soundwalk at 2pm
1965 Main Street
Vancouver BC
604.872.8337
sound.garden.scape: Gastown is a soundwalk installation. Using
portable radios, visitors can explore an interactive re-presentation
of Vancouver's Gastown area. This hands-on installation combines the
singularity of the soundwalking experience and the intimate sonic
realtionship we have with personal portable audio to create an
alternate, immersive sonic environment. The artist will be present to
host walks through the installation. Visitors are requested to bring
portable FM stereo receivers and earphones. A limited number of radios
are available on-site.
This installation is made up of 8 short-range FM transmitters
broadcasting binaural soundscape recordings collected from 8 locations
around Gastown. Using a mapping system, these broadcasts will
correspond to real space, but without the distance in-between. As
listeners move through the installation space, their radio (and
headphones) will pick up these different broadcasts, transporting them
to the source locations (which works remarkably well, thanks to
binaural source recordings) where, using a variety of hands-on
interfaces, the listeners are able to activate key sounds specific to
that location - imagine the Steam Clock whistling on demand! Each
listener's experience is unique, depending on how they move through
the installation or the buttons they push. The sound.garden.scape
installation is an immersive sonic environment waiting to be explored.
Eric Powell is a multidisciplinary artist working with the
interrelationship between space, place and sound. This work has found
him integrating immersive soundscapes, live musical composition,
theatre and dance. He has created sound and music for several
theatrical productions and gallery installations, including Critical
Distance's 2007 Fringe show Free Range, and Minneapolis artist
Margaret Pezalla-Granlund's installation Sub-Theory: Iceberg
Sculptures. Recently, Eric installed SoundGardenScape: Montreal, an
interactive short-range FM piece in Montreal, a late-night floating
concert called sound canoe under a bridge on Regina's Wascana Creek,
as well as presenting a lo-fi cassette tape loop entitled Tides: The
World Within, as a part of Crossfiring 2006, a multidisciplinary,
community-based, cross-cultural site-specific performance event at the
Claybank Brick Factory in Southwest Saskatchewan. sound.garden.scape:
Gastown is presented in partial fulfillment of the MFA degree
requirements at Simon Fraser University's School for the Contemporary
Arts. His research is made possible through the generous support of
the Social Science and Humanities Research Council.
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