Revoicing the Striated Soundscape

A City of Melbourne public art commission

Revoicing the Striated Soundscape was a site-specific multi-channel sound installation involving four recycled aircon units, presented in a laneway off Little Latrobe Street in Melbourne CBD. It was one of five projects commissioned by the City of Melbourne (COM) as part of the 2012 Public Art Program. The installation comprised eight soundscape compositions, running on a 90 minute loop.

This project relates to a field of creative research into the role of sound installations in public spaces. It emitted a sound that interacts with adjacent traffic sounds. It presents original research as an example of the application of sound spatialisation technology to a public installation. While sounds are typically played through speaker arrays as mono or stereo playback, Lacey explicitly transformed existing sound environments by recording those sound enviornemnts, shaping them in the studio and then returning the sounds to the existing environment.

In so doing his project contributes to soundscape design by way of transforming the typical sounds of a laneway into altered experiences. The project experimented with techniques for transforming site-specific sounds through recording, editing and reintroduction, to contribute new knowledge on the application of spatialisation software to urban sound installations.

 

Project Team:
Jordan Lacey
Jeff Hannam

 

Text adapted from text by Jordan Lacey located here.

2012

City of Melbourne