soundpocket 2: extremely local radio stations

soundpockets 2 illustration, originally uploaded by hc gilje.

This was the second project I made for urban interface oslo fall 2007.

I collected a library of field recordings I have made over the years. I set up an internet radio station for the project (using Nicecast), and played with different configurations mixing music and the field recordings, but ended up just using my own recordings.
I thought it could be interesting to stream internet radio, a global media, to very specific local areas. I found three locations in Oslo which would serve as the local radio stations. They were somehow connected to a clear visible cue in that location: A huge oak tree, a small sculpture, and a small pound in the roundabout. The range of the local stations would more or less correspond to these visual cues: If you saw them you would be able to pick up the signal from the radio stations. In numbers this would mean a range of 30-100 meters.
My original plan was to use the fm-senders for mp3 players which are mostly meant to be used to listen to the mp3 player through the car radio. This was partly because I was experimenting with solar energy as energy source, and because they were cheap. The range and quality of the signal wasnt good enough though, so I ended up getting the more powerful aareff fm transmitters .
The senders were placed with friendly hosts, letting me use their internet connection to pick up the internet radio stream.

The result was three very local radio stations sending out a continous soundtrack from other locations, so somehow these recorded locations came in dialogue with the physical locations of the radio stations.
The listening involved active participation from the public as you would need to tune in on your own radio to pick up the broadcast.

Soundpockets is a series of projects of intimate sound interventions in public spaces. By using fm radiowaves, soundbeams and miniature speakers to create local pockets of sound, the different projects have different scope and focus: creating private listening rooms, changing soundtracks of a location, displacement of time/or space and a bit of general disruption of everyday life.

Soundpocket 1: disturbing the soundscape

I made Soundpocket 1 as part of the exhibition urban interface oslo fall 2007.
From urban interface oslo blog:
“Hauntings? Dimension Doors? Time tunnels?
A boy heard what appeared to be the sound of a sheep coming from the wall of Strykejernet Art School.
A bartender at Blå was concerned when he heard running water like that from a leaking water pipe. The sound disappeared before he was able to locate it.
A seagull can be heard, but is nowhere to be seen.
Soundpocket artist HC Gilje is causing slight disturbances in the urban interfaces.”

Using a directional soundbeam to project a localized sound into a public space, this sound being only heard by the people within the sound beam which can be as narrow as 50 cm in diameter. It is similar to a lightbeam, only being sound instead. When it hits a surface it is reflected.
Soundpocket 1 was installed in a narrow passageway in Oslo, connecting two parts of the city. The soundbeam was mounted on a pan/tilt head making it possible to place the sounds very precisely in the passageway.

By bouncing the sound off surfaces, it seems as if the sound is coming from a window, door, elevator, a poster on the wall or just a more general presence. This made the piece into something which added another layer of sound to the existing soundscape, blending (sometimes disappearing) into the location.
Most of the sounds would appear to belong to the site, although dislocated (like the sound of the chandelier in the wind), the sounds of birds, telephones, babies crying, dogs barking, water running etc.

It was interesting to see how the piece was received. It was obvious for me that it wouldnt work very well as a typical art piece, it has a much more interventionist nature. I wanted it to be slight distortions to the regular soundscape of the passageway, and was pleased to see that the people who used this passageway regularly were noticing these disturbances. This could be described using the first of Barthes´ three listening modes: hearing involves “evaluation of the spatio-temporal situation“ and thus, it is linked to a “notion of territory“. It places the listener on alert when new sounds which dont´t “fit in” are heard.
By adding an extra layer of sound if also made people focus on the sounds which were already there.

The inspiration from this comes from when I studied in Trondheim in the 90ies, and I heard some stories about how a directional speaker had been used to cause a certain distress on a bridge over the local river: A person walking alone across the bridge suddenly hear whispering voices. An out of tune clarinet is projected into a marching band playing on the 17th of may (Norway´s national holiday).
If these stories are true or not, doesnt really matter, it is the idea of having a private experience in a public space which intrigued me.

Soundpockets is a series of projects of intimate sound interventions in public spaces. By using fm radiowaves, soundbeams and miniature speakers to create local pockets of sound, the different projects have different scope and focus: creating private listening rooms, changing soundtracks of a location, displacement of time/or space and a bit of general disruption of everyday life.

Erranti/Wanderers

“In the suggestive medieval spaces of the Magazzini del Sale (In Palazzo Publico, Siena),
some of the most interesting international video artists and film
makers measure themselves with the idea of wandering, a very ancient theme shared by
a variety of traditions and literature, the paradigm par excellence of the human
condition.

The exhibited works were created during the last decade; they are real “journeys”, or
wanderings of the mind, dealing with the search for an identity, dislocation and
estrangement. These random or planned meanderings set up a relentless “private”
dialogue with the natural landscapes and the architectural or urban spaces.
The artists deal with the subject of wandering according to different inflections; some
relate it to a “loss” and to a dynamic quest (Shirin Neshat, Martijn Veldhoen); some
associate it to the concept of “still dislocation” (Hans Op de Beeck, Kimsooja); some to a
wandering of the mind or memory (Matthias Müller, Jonas Dahlberg) that can also be
accompanied by physical wandering (Seouhgho Cho, Pipilotti Rist, Jonathan
Glazer/UNKLE); some artists thrust the wanderer into the metropolitan contradictory
environment (Jordi Colomer, HC Gilje). The exhibition also hosts the last work of
Michelangelo Antonioni, a concise and intense video showing the artist in a wandering,
poetic and sensuous dialogue with Michelangelo’s Moses.

In the bilingual (Italian/English) exhibition catalogue, published by Silvana Editoriale, the
theme of wandering is further investigated in essays by the curators and artists’
contributions, as well as in an extensive anthology of poems. In a meandering path from
Schiller to Verlaine, from Borges to Luzi, this selection of verses narrates the wanderer’s
poetic modulations from the romantic Wanderer to the 19th century flâneur, until the
contemporary drift.

EXHIBITED WORKS: Michelangelo Antonioni, Lo sguardo di Michelangelo, 2004 – Seoungho Cho, Orange
Factory, 2002 – Jordi Colomer, Anarchitekton: Barcelona – Bucarest – Brasilia – Osaka, 2002-04 – Jonas
Dahlberg, Untitled (Horizontal Sliding), 1999 e Untitled (Vertical Sliding), 2000 – HC Gilje, h.k.mark1,
1998 – Jonathan Glazer / UNKLE, Rabbit in Your Headlights, 1998 – Kimsooja, A Needle Woman – Mexico
City, Cairo, Lagos, London, 2000-01 – Matthias Müller, Album, 2004 – Shirin Neshat, Soliloquy, 1999 –
Hans Op de Beeck, Determination (4), 1998 – Pipilotti Rist, Aujourd’hui, 1999 – Martijn Veldhoen,
Momentum, 2003. “