The Sonic Agency of an Architecture
The Whalesong Project
2022
Geolocated sound piece
field recordings
dimensions: City center of Eindhoven
duration: loop
This work is an audio piece accessible in the city of Eindhoven via a smartphone app. From field-recordings I took at de Fabriek during my residency in 2022, I created a geo-located spatial composition, with a radius of approximately 2 km. The work emphasises the particular sound qualities of the building and the sounds that it creates by itself. Through the movement of the visitor, different compositions are generated. Like in a cubist painting the spectator experiences the sound-objects scattered, simultaneously, and overlapping in time and space while approaching the building. I see buildings as instruments with their own agency.
The Whalesong Project (at Dutch Design Week)
2022
Installation
microphone, tripod, headphones, printed entrance cards
dimensions: variable
duration: loop
During the Dutch Design Week, I presented the geolocated sound piece ‘The Whalesong Project’ with an installation. This installation served as an entrance to the sound piece, inviting the visitors to pick up an “entrance card” from the ground and scan a QR-code to start the walk. Next to the walk, it was possible to listen to the building in the same way I did during my recording sessions. Via headphones connected to a high-sensitivity microphone the listener was able to hear even the most subtle cracking and creaking sounds the building produces by itself.
The “entrance cards” to the walk where printed with photographs I took during my residency at De Fabriek. While the field-recorder was recording I had to wait long stretches of time. I used this time to explore the building and its surroundings with my camera and discovered secret landscapes, interesting relations between inside and outside, as well as between nature and architecture.
The Whalesong Project, Residency at De Fabriek Eindhoven
Film by Thijs van Gasteren