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This paper presents the methodology employed to create the sound installation Saving Shapes (2016-2018). Based on that, we will present some remarks about composing music for sound installations at outdoor places on exhibition for prolonged periods of time, particularly strategies to avoid audio loops. Our approach is based on three phases: (1) gather a wide range of phenomenological “information” from the place, mostly by performing soundwalks, taking notes and doing sound recordings (2) analyzing that “information” and composing music to be performed and installed at that specific place (3) periodically recreate the composition/installation using new “information” retrieved by repeating step number 1.
Our research is mostly based and inspired on ideas from soundscape studies and artistic practices of well-known authors such as Murray Schafer (1977), Hildegard Westerkamp (1974), Barry Truax (2001), David Abram (1996) and Bernie Krause (2013). For our specific work and research, Westerkamp and Krause are two key figures. On the one hand, Westerkamp (1974) addresses the surrounding environment as a performing place to be experienced while one performs a soundwalk. She believes that such a “performance” (i.e. soundwalking) within complex soundscapes (e.g. outdoor locations) is a rich sonic experience, thus, we believe, interesting to create (and recreate) music compositions. Soundwalking became the central aspect of our creative and analytical methodology, understood here as a multifaceted activity to listen, record and devise music compositions; on the other hand, Krause defined biophony, geophony and antrophony as complementary spheres of the soundscape, thus, defining a clear theoretical and practical reference about the acoustic elements of a given place. Krause’s spheres of the soundscape, together with Westerkamp’s soundwalk, are essential to our methodology and they form the theoretical and practical basis of our proposed creative process. Saving Shapes (2016-2018) was composed for an outdoor space. We believe that outdoor spaces, as opposed to indoor spaces, are best suited for our proposed creative methodology. Outdoor spaces offer an infinitude of complexities that (might) transform and dialog with instrumental and electroacoustic sounds.
Lastly, we will discuss the benefits of revisiting the same place to experience its particularities and meanings as a methodology, as opposed to using a computer to retrieve data in real time during the period of the installation. A lot of objects and narratives were constantly explored during a long period of time to instigate new (or old) connections between environmental sounds and the creative process. It materializes the multiple roles of soundwalking and the idiosyncrasy of the “human factor” to rebuild perspectives and transforming pre-existing compositions for a specific place.
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FCSH, Nova University