Chroma: Interactions of Noise

Chroma is a two-part, sound installation for six cassette players. The piece both builds upon approaches to the sculpting and framing of ‘surplus’ noise evidenced in liminal’s (Frances Crow and David Prior) Organ of Corti, but here, the focus moves from the acoustic mediation of environmental sound to an examination of the role of noise in recording media. The installation was made for the Paul Stolper Gallery, London.

Contributing to the recent upsurge in both scholarship and practice on the theme of noise, Chroma juxtaposes the two meanings of the term – as unwanted sound and as a sound that has no discernable pitch – in dialogue with each other. Part one of the piece plays six ostensibly 'static' noise colours through six tape players. While these recordings interact with each other within the acoustics of the gallery, they are also interacting with the technology that carries them: the cassette tape and the 6-watt speaker. In this way, Chroma: Interactions of Noise, uses these coloured noises both as the fabric from which to sculpt the gallery space and as the material from which to make a homage to the medium of tape itself.

Part two of the installation, Other Places, contrasts the focus on interactions in space with a focus on temporal evolution. Originally commissioned by Lunapark Ensemble (NL) for a concert listening environment, Other Places evolves as a musical work, using field recordings of noise: air conditioning, wind, and in particular the noise of slide and 8mm projector fans, as the basis for an immersive tableaux of sculpted noise.

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