Sound Arts Year 3

Notes on Iain Chambers and “Concrete Paris” Composition:

• Composer behind “Concrete Paris,” part of BBC Radio 3’s Between the Ears series.
• Explores the musical composition of brutalist concrete buildings from the 1960s and 70s in the outskirts of Paris.
• Approach involves using location recordings as musical components, with buildings playing lead roles.
• Founder of Langham Research Centre, known for using field recordings in compositions.
• Interest in site-specific work exploring sound within the built environment.
• Previous projects include electro-acoustic music inspired by brutalist structures, such as Trinity Square multi-storey car park in Gateshead.
• Inspiration for “Concrete Paris” came from the publication ‘Brutalist Maps of Paris.’
• Explored sites like Créteil, Ivry-sur-Seine, and Bobigny, capturing distinctive sounds of brutalist architecture.
• Utilizes stereo and contact microphones for recordings.
• Stereo microphones capture deep building sounds and threshold sounds bleeding into it, while contact microphones focus on resonant places within the architecture.
• Describes interaction with buildings using contact microphones as “playing the building.”
• Program includes interviews with key figures in the design of the buildings, providing context and insight.
• Dr. Robin Wilson, co-creator of Brutalist Maps of Paris, describes the soundscape as impressionistic, capturing an urban journey.
• Composition aims to transform familiar sounds into something that speaks to the truth of the place.
• Reflection on successful brutalist social housing, citing Ivry as an example of mixing uses effectively.
• Hopes listeners enjoy the “slightly dreamlike” and “otherworldly” results, offering an escapist virtual trip to Paris.
• Expresses interest in continuing exploration of architectural sound, mentioning the desire to work on a project at Cardross Seminary.

https://www.ribaj.com/culture/brutalism-sound-concrete-paris-ian-chambers-robin-wilson

Notes on “Brutalism in Sound: Concrete Paris and The Gathering Grounds”

• Sound energy splits into three upon striking a surface: reflected, absorbed, and transmitted.
• The surface’s material, shape, and composition determine the proportions of the split.
• Smooth concrete is an ideal reflector, with minimal absorption or transmission of sound energy.
• Concrete rooms exhibit high reverberation times due to minimal dissipation.
• Acoustic architecture adage: an open window is a perfect absorber for the listener.
• Each room has a unique acoustic fingerprint based on size, shape, and materials.
• Large, full, and hard rooms sound different from their counterparts.
• The experiential equivalence of absorption and transmission as non-reflective processes.
• In Brutalism, the architectural style embodies the contrast between reflection and non-reflection.
• Brutalist structures emphasize hulking, sweeping, and economical design, not expressly acoustic.
• Concrete, a dominant material in Brutalism, highlights the contrast between reflection (solid) and non-reflection (void).
• Mario Ciampi’s museum at 2626 Bancroft Way exemplifies Brutalist design without acoustic treatment.
• Concrete and glass surfaces remain bare, offering a scientific glimpse into the relationship between sound and form.
• The museum’s intrinsic sonic condition cultivated its reputation in the experimental music scene.
• Ciampi’s design rejects soft transitions and gradated materials, representing extremes of acoustic possibility.
• The venue’s closure in 2014 interrupted the permeation of its sonic consequences into architectural consciousness.
• “Acoustic Deconstruction of 2626 Bancroft Way” aimed to explore a potential acoustic future rather than document history.
• Published in 2016 as an insert for the vinyl LP “Acoustic Deconstruction,” featuring work by Ingrid Lee, Matt Ingalls, and Maggi Payne.
• LP resulted from a collaborative project by Jacqueline Kiyomi Gordon and Zackery Belanger to study and document the acoustics of 2626 Bancroft Way.
• Produced by Jacqueline Kiyomi Gordon for The Lab SF.

https://zbelanger.medium.com/brutalism-exposed-the-essence-of-acoustic-architecture-59d69541bfb5

Notes on Iklectik 2021 Event: “Brutalism in Sound: Concrete Paris and The Gathering Grounds”

• Venue: Iklectik, Lambeth (independent performance space and research arts laboratory)
• Collaboration with sound artist and composer Iain Chambers
• Focus on Chambers’s 15-minute sonic score, “Concrete Paris”
• Developed a new image and text projection sequence to accompany the performance
• Sequence followed the rhythmic changes of Chambers’s piece
• Explored a journey across Paris, combining imagery of Brutalist architecture with found objects and surfaces of the inner city at night
• The event also featured the premiere of “The Gathering Grounds” (11 minutes)
• Generated from fieldwork in the landscapes of Darwell and Powdermill reservoirs, East Sussex
• Blend of black-and-white photography with a sonic composition made entirely from field recordings
• Included a spoken narrative for three voices, constructed from fieldnotes
• Montage of archival and social media texts from occupants and users of the land over time
• Represented various perspectives, from engineers and archaeologists to ramblers and fishing clubs
• Allowed different cultures of language to intersect, revealing different itineraries and modes of attention
• Journey unveiled an increasingly contested landscape of diverse land use, ownership, and agency

“The Sound of Architecture,” edited by Angeliki Sioli and Elisavet Kiourtsoglou, delves into the relationship between architecture and sound, exploring how the acoustic qualities of built environments influence human experiences. This interdisciplinary collection of essays and research sheds light on the intersection of architecture, sound design, and spatial perception, offering valuable insights for professionals and enthusiasts alike.

As a philosophical concept, the circle of life means that we start at the end and end in the beginning. Our lives, from beginning to end, resemble a complete full circle. No matter how big or small the circle is, it ends in the exact same way for everyone. It’s nature’s way of taking and giving back life to earth, symbolizing the universe being sacred and divine. It represents the infinite nature of energy; when something dies, it gives new life to another. Immerse in an amazing experience of nature dancing around you in a continuous movement from life to death to rebirth. Step into this beautiful world and be consciously present in the eternal order of change of nature. Walk around, breathe, observe, take it all in and let it go. This is the circle of life. Circle of Life is an immersive experience with projections on the surface of a round room of 16 meters in diameter with a 5-meter-high wall. The story projected on the wall follows the life cycles seen in nature, while the floor shows an interactive animation reacting to the visitor’s movements.

Swiss sound artist Zimoun harnesses the power of quick, chaotic movements in his large-scale installations and kinetic sculptures. Each artwork is composed of simple materials like cardboard boxes, wooden dowels, and cotton balls, among other common objects. The frenzied movements contrast the calming, whirring sounds the artworks emit, which mimic raindrops or a repetitive drum. This juxtaposition is just one example of the many comparisons the artist draws: chaos vs. order, mass vs. individual, simplicity vs. complexity, and manufactured vs. organic.

In this fascinating glimpse into the world of sound effects, Joanna Fang, a talented foley artist for PlayStation Studios, showcases her mastery in creating immersive audio experiences for video games like God of War: Ragnarok. From unconventional tools like plungers to transforming everyday objects into extraordinary sounds, Joanna’s work brings virtual worlds to life with incredible realism.

Paris-based director Valentin Petit found inspiration for her latest film, exploring the experience of those with synaesthesia—a perceptual phenomenon where the stimulation of one sensory pathway triggers another—after reading Daniel Tammet’s autobiographical novel, Born on a Blue Day. Twisting reality yet further, Petit imbues Lou, the film’s protagonist, with surreal and mind-bending supernatural abilities. “The choice to give Lou supernatural abilities was to demonstrate our inability to understand something which is so intimate and personal. Entering into the fantastical allowed the film to pose challenging questions to the other main characters, Marius and Pablo, who must confront a phenomenon that defies belief.”

Mahraganat—meaning ‘festivals’ in Arabic—is a street music style which has quickly emerged from Egypt’s more deprived districts, rapidly embedding itself in Cairo’s urban culture. In this film, director and electronic musician Wael Alaa (who records under the name NEOBYRD) heads to the Egyptian capital’s Bulaq district—the epicentre of this burgeoning underground scene—to document the people and places behind this defiant new genre.