Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T02:25:43.845Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Icebreaker: Soundscape works as everyday sound art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2009

Owen Chapman
Owen Chapman
Affiliation:
Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West, CJ 3.230, 3rd Floor, Montreal, Quebec, CanadaH4B 1R6 E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The following discusses the potential of soundscape work to reveal new aspects of our everyday aural environments. Openness to the voice(s) of one’s sonic surroundings is maintained as a hallmark of soundscape works, and also a key component of sound art more generally. Different perspectives and questions are articulated, with a consistent focus on the variety of spaces engaged by both sound(scape) artists and listeners. A case study is presented – a recently initiated sound art project on the part of the author entitled The Icebreaker. The latter is a musical instrument, performance piece and interactive installation made from piezo microphones and ice. Prepared compositions, including soundscape works, are diffused at different moments when one ‘plays’ The Icebreaker. I describe this emergent work as an example of the sort of considerations and negotiations that are at the heart of soundscape/sound art composition. My aim is to demonstrate how sound artworks bring us to attend to sounds we formerly failed to notice, revealing our own reactions to these stimuli at the same time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Organised Sound , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , April 2009 , pp. 83 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arkette, S. 2004. Sounds Like City. Theory, Culture and Society 21(1): 159–168.Google Scholar
Benjamin, W. 1969. On Unpacking My Library: A talk about book collecting. In Illuminations. New York: Shocken, 59–67.Google Scholar
Chapman, O. 2007. Selected Sounds: A collective investigation into the practice of sample-based music. PhD Dissertation in Communication Studies, Concordia University.Google Scholar
Franklin, U. 1992. The Real World of Technology. Concord, ON: House of Anansi Press Limited.Google Scholar
Goldstein, M. 1988. Sounding the Full Circle (concerning improvisation and other related matters). Sheffield, VT: M. Goldstein.Google Scholar
Heidegger, M. 1977. The Question Concerning Technology. In The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. New York: Harper and Row, 3–35.Google Scholar
Helmi, J. 2006. One Hundred Finnish Soundscapes? Exploring the Feelings of Safety, Soundscape and Lived Space in Sonic Memories. In The West Meets the East in Acoustic Ecology. Hirosaki: Japanese Association for Sound Ecology, 70–83.Google Scholar
Kaprow, A. 2006. Fluids. New York: Distributed Art Publishers.Google Scholar
Marsh, P. 2002. Album review of REC01 by Colin Olan. http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/xcjw/ (accessed 15 September 2008).Google Scholar
McCartney, A. 2004. Soundscape Works, Listening, and the Touch of Sound. In Aural Cultures. Toronto: YYZ Books, 179–185.Google Scholar
Ratcliffe, K. 1999. Rhetorical Listening: A Trope for Interpretive Invention and a ‘Code of Cross-Cultural Conduct’. College Composition and Communication 51(2): 195–224.Google Scholar
Rogalsky, M. 2005. 2 minutes and 50 seconds silence (for the USA). [Audio piece with attached artist statement.] Public: art, culture, ideas (Digipopo edition) 31: 8.Google Scholar
Westerkamp, H. 2002. Linking Soundscape Composition and Acoustic Ecology. Organised Sound 7(1): 51–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westerkamp, H. 2003. NADA: An experience in sound. In S:ON – Le son dans l’art contemporain canadien/Sound In Contemporary Canadian Art. Montreal: Éditions Artextes, 114–121.Google Scholar

Chapman sound file

Icebreaker_improv_with_ondes_martenot_laptop_guitar_24bit

Download Chapman sound file(Audio)
Audio 7.3 MB

Chapman movie file

Frozen puddle

Download Chapman movie file(Video)
Video 7.6 MB

Chapman movie file

Ice_Xylophone

Download Chapman movie file(Video)
Video 9.3 MB