Wednesday, 12 December, 2012 - 18:00

Sonic Architecture + Organic LF Performance

Don Hill
Martin Howse
Derek Shirley

Listen here

18:00: "If you can't fix it, feature it!"
Lecture and discussion with Don Hill and Martin Howse

Derek Shirley: Dead/Live Wood - Organic Low Frequency Performance

the evening will be streamed@reboot.fm and starts on time!

Don Hill:

"A few years ago, I gave a keynote speech to the annual convention of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (the professional folks who design and shape the outdoor space between buildings).

One thing that has always puzzled me (and I said as much to the audience) is why so little attention is paid to the sound of public spaces; as an example, I complained about the acoustics of a nearby civic square (think of Berlin’s Alexanderplatz).

To my ear and despite extensive remodeling (at significant taxpayer expense), the audio image of the public gathering place was still uninviting; passersby tended not to linger long unless, of course, there was a special event that kept them there.

“The most interesting thing,” I said, about the downtown square “is how the carillon bells echo and bounce off buildings.”

And then I got an idea.

A self-directed residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts—an investigation of 3D kunstkopf field-recorded audio—taught me that you don’t have to put up with ugly sound in the environment; it’s possible to offset the overall pitch by adding frequencies to harmonize with persistent urban noise.

I had it in mind that the bell tower beside Edmonton’s city hall was perhaps useful in ways that were never imagined for the public (more on that in a moment).

To comply with the Environmental Noise Directive (2002) Germany is “required to produce strategic noise maps in their main cities” to formulate policy to clean up neighbourhoods blighted by sound pollution (typically associated with motorways and nearby industrial activity).

In 2011, I was funded “to remediate the unpleasant sound of a large public square in the downtown of a major Canadian city by creating the conditions for acoustic standing waves, noise-cancellation effects,” by strategically adding sounds from a carillon to create a “harmony of the square”.

For the talk: I will present excerpts from what I have published recently—magazine articles, recordings, scientific papers and so forth (inclusive of my new research in southeast Asia)—that describe and tell of a ‘sonic architecture’ that shapes human perception of public spaces. I will also draw attention to overlooked ‘acoustic scaffolding’ that I have found in nature (how purposefully placed trees, for instance, can filter urban racket)."

Don Hill

20:00 Derek Shirley: Dead/Live Wood - Organic Low Frequency Performance

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