august, 16th 2011

a soundwalk through the weathervanes

the image of an environment exists in the mind of each of its inhabitants. these images are individual and collective mental representations of the geographic world to which we attach meanings. the sum total of these personal interpretations gives shape to a kaleidoscope of images.

how do non-material and non-visual aspects of an environment appear in the polyphonic mental image a community builds of its territory?

how can sounds and spoken words be collected, organized, stored, shared and communicated locally?

how can we make this activity meaningful to the community in the valley and to a broader audience?

and then: is it possible to create aesthetic values from a process while accepting to lose control over the content?

we designed a process, a multimedia local interaction, whose material product is a situated interactive soundwork that rely on an archive of user-generated sounds and memories, orchestrated by weather conditions and people interactions.

Within the curatorial frame, we define the field as a fabric and a playground, made of emancipated spectators, an adaptive design, a webby environment, a bunch of designers: it communicates through sensors and actuators, but also through gestures and encounters; natural and artificial overlap, as action is originated from multiple points and travels through the field.

We intend public art as process design as urban process: we move from a craft-based perspective of urban design and architecture, agile software methodologies, game design and vernacular design.

We are attempting to build a local, site-specific multimedia interaction, where the whole of human relations and their social context are to be involved.

We expect results to be open-ended, with low aesthetic resolution, as we look for interactivity and DIY (do-it-yourself) practice; the most valued outcomes being the relationships produced, within and around the community, its heritage and future, its places, atmosphere, collective and individual memories.

A soundscape is a combination of sounds that forms or arises from an immersive environment. It includes natural sounds and the sounds of ordinary human activities. The term soundscape can also refer to a performance of sounds that enable the experience of a particular acoustic environment.

Sounds are gathered in the field, taken from their natural sockets and given an amplified and independent existence, a recombination and a recontextualization: we emphasize the importance of “playing” in the creation of music.

Pierre Schaeffer’s idea of jeu comes from the French verb jouer, which carries the same double meaning as the English verb:

to play is

“to enjoy oneself by interacting with one’s surroundings”

as well as

“to operate a musical instrument”.

We add a dimension to the term, the intuititive remix practice of pressing “play” buttons.

We create tools to engage and interact locally with a social and natural sorrounding and to play (with) it…

The installation will consist of a large number of weathervanes, built by voluntary participants from the community of the Methow Valley, arranged evenly on a plain within the choreographic Big Ranch Valley. When in Mazama we will hack some of the weathervanes, by attaching small laser-cut boxes and pinwheels; each box containing an Arduino micro-controller, a couple of sensors, an audio shield, an SD card and two speakers. Hundreds of audio clips, recorded by the community itself or extracted from interviews taken at local public events, are loaded on the memory cards and will be selected, processed, filtered, reproduced and mixed dynamically, according to the direction of the wind, its intensity, its variability and the unpredictable physical interaction with the spectators.

The environment is the interactive setting for a vast stream of signals, messages and noise that emerges and merges back into it.

we want people to come together and participate in a shared activity. through encounters, meaning is elaborated collectively.

we need a lot of weathervanes, the kind that’s easy to build and you have encountered many times:

we evaluate function over contemplation, and open-endedness over aesthetic resolution.

print out the manual

post here your recordings

print out (fold and staple) our manual

WHAT TO RECORD

tell a story…
whistle…
imitate a sound…
catch it…
play!

what sounds used to wake you up when you were a child?
what were the sounds you used to hear when trying to sleep?
what sounds were in the Valley and now have disappeared?
what new sounds have instead appeared?

what are the sounds of women and of men in the Valley?
what are the sounds of machines?
what are the sounds of the weather?
what are the sounds of animals and trees?

what are the most pleasant sounds in the Valley?
what are the most annoying?
what are the most exciting?
what’s the sound of calmness?

play your banjo?
do you have an harmonica?
how does your favorite traditional song go?
whistle! or just murmur or shout out loud…

what do trees sound like in the Valley?
how about the local market?
how does the wind sound? and the water? and the rain?
what about chit chat on the main street?

This project has been developed during a two weeks residency: emerging artists, architects and researchers were invited to come together in the remote foothills of the Cascade Mountains of Washington State to take part in the formulation of an international, discursive platform.

The Mazama Residency/2011 is a project by Valerio Borgonuovo, Silvia Franceschini and Abigail Napp.

We have other ideas and you too: feel free to contact us for whatever reason

Alessandro Contini, Paolo Patelli, Danila Pellicani