Art Ambience

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Another Toop inspired subject; I made a trip to the National Gallery of Ireland to try approaching the contents there in an aural inspired way. I decided to see only a handful of paintings, and give each at least the same amount of time as I would a piece of music, or sound, and also to try and listen to the painting. To hear the sounds and atmosphere presented, rather than just approaching the scene visually.

Chris Watson was commissioned by the British National Gallery to compose sound for a Constable painting. In the Radio 4 Nature show, he discusses his approach to 'hearing' the sounds in the painting. This blurring of borders between forms really does allow for greater appreciation of the artist's intent.


Sound. Memory.

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The recent issue of Field Notes magazine, published by the Gruenrekorder label had an unusual article composed of various onomatopoeic poems, written by numerous sound artists. The theme was memory, specifically memory based on sonic sensation. Despite smell being considered the sense connected most vividly with memory, I think there's a certain emotive nature to sound memories that can't be triggered by smell. My own most potent sound memory is of the trees that are outside the back of my family home. They are part of the outer radius of the Rossmore forest. Nothing to me was more primevally terrifying than the

SSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

of the trees on a windy night. The sound seemed to roll down the hill, seeking to wash you away into the anonymous dark. It was a threatening, aggressive sound, completely unlike the calming white noise wash of waves. Even now I still find it recalling those fears, but being a bit older, it provides more of a thrill, like nature releasing a brutal scream towards the listener.

It's a subject discussed several times by David Toop in Sinister Resonance as he tells of the fearful thoughts that are triggered by random nocturnal noises. He describes being 'woken on a Saturday night by sounds  that through the mist of sleep could have been a gang of cannibalistic human babies, crawling around our house, wet, cold, hungry and in search of an entry point'. Sound seems to press itself on the memory in a unique way, being able to emote so much more than other forms of memory. Perhaps in our mind's eye as we review the memory, just as with cinema,  the sonic sensations enhance the visual to a higher level?