Part 2

Many artists have related that certain sounds trigger compositional ideas in them or are even a compositional element in their own right. Provided this is the case for you – what, exactly, is about certain sounds that triggers such ideas in you?

When we’re producing the video for audio walks there’s definitely decisions made for the content of the piece from the sounds that we hear. We plan the walks by exploring routes over and over, listening and watching along the way. Also the architecture or streets along the walk dictates which types of sounds or voice script will resonate historically as well as emotionally ... like psychogeography ... I love that term.  

For our installation works I think we approach composition in different ways. In Murder of Crows, 2010, we worked with the idea of composing a type of filmic soundtrack over 98 speakers. It’s a linear work that loops and has a definite start and end so it’s more traditional compositionally.

We hired a composer for parts of it and we’d tell him what type of music we wanted for that area and keep working with him until his section had the effect and sound that we felt suited the rest of the piece. We also juxtaposed very disparate sounds ... from a Russian choir that moves through the space to a massive movement of a wind storm that culminates in a crashing wave, all in a huge space where the sounds move back and forth from end to end. Then we edited the sounds into a looping sequence of 30 minutes. I think constructing pieces like this or the walks is like writing poetry, one sound will resonate with others like lines of words do to each other.

We also have several pieces based on the participant deciding the composition in which we provide the raw elements and they combine them. We love working with chance in this way.

This is really apparent in Experiment in F#Minor from 2013. For this piece we invited a lot of musicians into the studio and gave them a click track then told them to just play whatever they wanted in the key of F#m. We also had a drummer add some tracks. Then we had enormous amounts of source material and we edited it down to about 2.5 minute synced loops ... about 65 tracks. All of the tracks run at once in the program but there are sensors on the tables that turn on the amplifiers according to the audience movement. If only one person is in the room then it can be a very quiet piece but if there are alot then it’s like a big rock song cacophony.

Another participatory piece called Instrument of Troubled Dreams is based on the concept of a Mellotron except that we created a surround sound Melotron with sounds, music, and narrative voice, like elements from a dystopian film soundtrack. The participant sits at the organ and plays the keys composing their own soundscapes from the ambisonic sphere of 25 speakers surrounding them.

How do you see the relationship between sound, space and composition?

Spaces are very important to us and dictate the type of work we make for each one. If we’re given a site and we think that a video walk would be great in that area then we’ll shoot a physical film with a binaural soundtrack. If the site calls out for a soundscape from a speaker array or individual intimate sounds then the final artwork will be that. We design it according to how the sound suits the space.

For Documenta XIII we produced Forest for a Thousand Years. Because of the site of a forest being in Kassel we started to think about what this area of trees had heard over the centuries and worked with sounds in relation to that concept. As we all know Kassel was the site of horrific bombing during the war as well so the site was very potent.

This piece is a composition in which the listener sits on tree stumps in the middle of a forest like they are listening to a concert. The sound is ambisonic and most of it was recorded in a forest and rural locatons in the West of Canada. It’s permanently installed in a couple of places in the US so the sounds, especially the war sounds, are of course interpreted quite differntly than they were in Kassel. I like how the meaning of audio can be so fluid like this depending on where and when you hear it.

Another composition was Pandemonium from 2005. It was a fully percussive piece that came out of being asked to produce something for a former penitentiary, Easter State Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. There was a gorgeous 2-story abandoned cell block with skylights and about 200 cells that we turned into a massive percussive instrument with robotic beaters hitting surfaces, toilets, pipes, oil drums etc. It was a composition that moved through the long space from one end to the other.

The space which was originally a very cruel prison was visually so poetic and horrific at the same time that we wanted each cell to have its own voice reflecting the isolation of the prisoners.

Humans are often characterised as "visual beings". In your opinion, what role does our sense of hearing play in our understanding of the world? How do sounds affect you, compared to other senses like sight or smell?

I was watching a James Bond movie the other night and there’s a scene where a bomb goes off and he can’t hear. It made me think how impossible it would be for a spy to not be able to hear. But I don’t think you can really separate the senses. If you hear a sound and have no vision sometimes you can’t really understand what it is. I think our brains use our senses like a mixing board .. turning up the volume for sight when needed and dulling some senses when you need to really hear something.

We have found out from doing video walks that visuals will take precedence even it’s a tiny screen so when we edit them we sometimes cancel the visuals at different times. But strangely with the early audio walks people told us it helped them to see and experience more. It heightens the other senses especially the visual. So perhaps sound can be a stimulus. With multi speaker installations we always keep the lights low so people will hear more.

The idea of acoustic ecology has drawn a lot of attention to the question of how much we are affected by the sound surrounding us. What's your take on this and on acoustic ecology as a movement in general?  

I would agree. The world does not think enough about acoustic ecology.

It’s heartbreaking to listen to Bernie Kraus talk about the changing soundscape of natural environments. R Murray Schafer and Hildegard Westerkamp were such pioneers in this area. But commercial or industrial development rarely thinks about these concerns. Even in a rural landscape it’s almost impossible to record natural sounds now without hearing plane or road noise. Unless you really go far out into the bush.

The CIA and other penal organizations have used sound torture as a very effective means which shows how much we’re affected by our sound environments. Modern prisons are intentionally loud to create a controlled environment with no release. You can shut your eyes but you can’t shut your ears.

We can listen to a pop song or open our window and simply take in the noises of the environment. Without going into the semantics of 'music vs field recordings', in which way are these experiences different and / or connected, do you feel?

For me they are extremely different in most cases. I can see them mixing in compositions and installations of course which we also do all the time and understand John Cage wanting to combine them in his works. But when I’m listening to pop music I sometimes get taken out of the music if the band uses non musical sounds.

Field recordings take a different sort of listening for me because they reference the physical world so much and are more directed. Music is so much about the imaginary worlds you create inside your head.

From the concept of Nada Brahma to "In the Beginning was the Word", many spiritual traditions have regarded sound as the basis of the world. Regardless of whether you're taking a scientific or spiritual angle, what is your own take on the idea of a harmony of the spheres and sound as the foundational element of existence?

That’s a light question ... (laughs)

I love the idea of harmony of the spheres. We did a piece called Infinity Machine which used the NASA electroacoustic recordings of various planets and moons from the 1970s. It was fascinating how different they are but very harmonious to each other. I can see why Pythagoras would connect the idea of the harmony of the spheres in relation to mathematics.

I guess the beginnings for all of us was a sound world inside our mother’s stomachs. So instead of In the beginning was the word, I’d have to say in the begining was an ambisonic sound environment.

Sound is one of the most mysterious and magical things in our lives. Invisible vibrations connecting us all. That really is magic.