Category: 2020/21

The theme that we have all worked with respectively was: borders and barriers and also broadcasting (over them). We have used sound as the medium and would ideally present it in a form of vinyl records.

Clive San Eun -“Block” is all about barriers between humans. The barrier that divides people might be physical habitat, or something else. “Block” suggest listeners the idea of what divide people, what are they doing over the barrier, and the direction for us living with the barrier.

Coded Message

“Block” contains several coded messages among the three parts of the soundtrack. Words from the bible, conversations, sound of water, tapping something, people talking, and any other sounds encourage listeners to decode the meaning as they want.

Chapter 1 (~3:15)
Prologue: Mixture of a bunch of sounds, an overview of the entire soundtrack

Chapter 2 (~5:50)
Conversations: Conversation between two voices, portraying barriers between people

Chapter 3 (~end)
Epilogue: End of the story, suggesting a direction for us

Pavla Geschwandtnerova – In their time, in my habitat

Since my current habitat is very close to the Slovak border with Austria, I decide to base my work around how it was to live here one or two generations back with the presence of the iron curtain separating Europe in two. Since from where I reside currently, the wester bloc was so dauntingly close, yet completely out of reach, I decided to focus on the theme of people crossing the border. I have gathered multiple authentic first hand stories of people who attempted and failed/succeeded to cross the iron curtain and used original recordings of them, mixed with (mostly) my field recordings in order to tell their stories using only sound. Since I decided to use their own voices for authenticity, and they are in Slovak language, I have provided a leaflet with translations to go with the piece. The field recordings have been conduced in the locations where the iron curtain once stood, in order to convey the habitat as closely as possible. The sounds or the velvet revolution and the march to Hainburg in the end of the piece are also authentic recording from that time, found in the Constitution of the National Memory archive (as were the first hand experiences). The sounds that I was not capable of recording by myself were sourced from free sound banks or online. In regards to the brochure – the crooked line in some of the designs is a tracing of the border next to where I reside, between Slovakia (right) and Austria (left); the images used in the brochure are also authentic photos of the specific people and of the velvet revolution/the march to Hainburg.

Finlay Mackay – “A soundscape exploring transcending borders through communication and distance”

Leo Malins -East to West

For my project I set off on a journey across Glasgow from the East End, through the center, to the West end. Inspired by real wide band radio signals, captured online, I took field recordings from interactions with physical barriers and borders and edited them together into a soundscape for each area, to bring it into analog I recorded these sound scapes onto cassettes and continued to work on them. These recordings could now be broadcast over the Glasgow’s borders; using physical barriers to connect areas separated by non physical barriers. Or could be broadcast/listened too as one journey providing an experience for each area of Glasgow.

Experience:

Place:

The public space is, as the word indicates, meant to be available for everyone. Yet, the public space is filled with urban architecture that exclude people from using the public furniture. In the streets, in parks, train stations and bus shelters, we find segmented and curved benches, metal spikes, high pitch sounds and gated communities. This kind of design is classified as hostile architecture, and it aims to exclude unwanted groups of people from the public space. This kind of design strategy is a powerful guide to behavior. Both directly and in its symbolism. Directly, the furniture is designed to make it uncomfortable for the body to use it. Symbolically, it signals that the public space is restrictive, and only available for a limited duration. It signifies an anti-democratic public space even in cities that rule under democracy. In this project we want to investigate how hostile architecture affect the humanity in our habitat, the social hierarchy and the visuality of the public space. We are exploring what role design and architecture plays in our habitat through a study in the materials of urban architecture and how they interact with human activity.

Experience:

Archive:

Our project is based upon the exploration of human trace: what is left behind after we have gone? Our aim is to give importance to the discarded: the lost objects in our habitat that once served a purpose and now tell a story. We have established a framing system, taking inspiration from windows: in recent times they have become representational of the separation between private and public, we have become onlookers to each other and to a world that has lost its character during the pandemic.

Our Aim for this project was to connect our communities in their creativity by getting them involved in providing the stories for these lost objects. We used two methods that allowed for people to send us their creative stories: sending out letters and creating an email for people to contact, we also posted on community pages to raise awareness.

Our proposal for a post-covid project would include placing permanent boxes in hidden locations, the objects that would displayed would be changed weekly, this allowing enough time to collect written stories that would be placed inside a cylindrical mould attached to the side of the box. The letters would be compressed to make modern monuments that would be publicly displaced as a representation of a collective public artwork.

Experience:

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