16. 3D Audio Book: The Influence of Janet Cardiff.
Janet Cardiff is a Canadian born artist that specialises in immersive sound installations, walks and headphone pieces. Very marrying of visual and audio aspects has always been a great inspiration for me, and I feel that Cardiff succeeds in creating accessable sound art works for the public.
Below are a selection of her works that informed my 3D Audio Book.
-Janet Cardiff on her piece ‘Forty Part Moet’ and the idea of using space a a way of evoking emotion in the audience member. (2001)
Forty Part Moet is perhaps Cardiff’s best known piece. Consisting of five clusters of eight speakers, the piece is a reimagining of Thomas Tallis's Spem in Alium.
-Thomas Tallis's Spem in Alium (1570)
Below is an extract of the program notes for the piece when it was exihibted at the Cloisters in New York City (2003)...
- Program note to ‘Forty Part Moet’ in the Cloisters New York (2003)
I found it interesting that the audience are invited to roam around the space, in a way that wouldn’t be allowed in a typical theatrical or choir setting.
Jim Dwyer of the New York Times was profoundly moved by the piece:
“Wobbling, blissed out, a few in tears, people emerged every 12 minutes or so from the remnant of a 12th-century Spanish chapel tucked into the Cloisters museum...Inside the ancient chapel was the first presentation of contemporary art ever at the Cloisters: “The Forty Part Motet,” an 11-minute immersion in a tapestry of voice, each thread as vivid as the whole fabric. A sacred composition of Renaissance England is rendered by the multimedia artist Janet Cardiff through 40 speakers — one for each voice in the Salisbury Cathedral Choir, which performed the piece in 2000. What started as one microphone per singer is now a choir of black high-fidelity speakers arrayed in an oval, eight groupings of soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass. In the intimate space of the museum’s Fuentidueña Chapel, the sound, from invisible people, as if from ghosts, feels like charged, living sculpture. Through Dec. 8, it plays in a loop all day.“- Dywer 2013.
How this piece has effected my work: The profound change in audience function in this piece is incredibly interesting. The fact that the audience can move around and experience the sound all around them obviously can be utilised to great affect. In constructing my multichannel piece, I will bare this in mind, perhaps using music and other elements to lift up the narrative of the audio book.
UPDATE: Since changing my concept slightly, I still took into account how powerful the idea of all encompassing sound can be. For my headphones piece, I will endeavour to create a similar feeling in the audience.
‘’The Killing Machine’ (2007)
This piece is both an visual and audio sculpure that relies on a certain sense of unease. When reviewing the show
Raif Beil describes this scuplure in his essay: ‘Fireworks for the tympanum and the cerebral cortex - Noise, Sound, and Music in the Work of Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller’ (2007
“The memory-filled, acoustic landscapes she and Miller create have taken the form of the abandoned laboratory cluttered with memory aids and transmitting media like books (like) the strange and threatening Killing Machine (2007) with its robot arms.” (Beil, 2007)
How this piece will effect my work: This sculptural piece places heavy importance of the idea of a space interacting with sound. The audience is invited to press the button to begin the piece, and thus feels a kind of agency in it’s unfolding. The piece is cinematic without many words; a combination that I hope to achieve in my 3D Audio book.
-’The Missing Voice: Case Study’ (1999)
‘The Missing Voice is an interesting soundwalk/immersive sound experience where the audience is fed instructions by Cardiff. The piece begins as a soundwalk at the White Chapel Gallery in east London and takes the audeince around the streets nearby.
The immersive nature of this piece was a great inspiration to me in my work, and I really enjoyed how Cardiff interacted with the environment to create a unique narrative experience.
-Map of ‘The Missing Voice’ (2007)
How this piece has effected my work: Again, I feel that this piece is an interesting example of actually involving the audience in a narrative. I aim for a similar feeling of audio immersion in my work.
-’Opera For A Small Room’ (1995)
Like ‘The Killing Machine’, ‘Opera For A Small Room’ created a ghostly sculpurral and audio experience. With voices and music making up the bulk of the ‘moving sections’ of the piece, the audience feel strangely alone in such a busy atmosphere.
Kevin Griffin of the Vancouver Sun reviewed the piece in it’s updated form in 2014:
-Review from the Vancouver Sun (2014)
How this piece will effect my work: Like ‘The Killing Machine’ I feel that this piece is effective in its ability to use space, audio and a lack of human subject in a space. I aim to create an audio experience that creates an almost ghostly feeling in the audience.
UPDATE: Related work: The Dream house NYC:
Whilst in New York City last year I had the opportunity to visit ‘The Dream House, a installation gallery space in Manhattan. The space is home to light and sound exhibitions, and I feel is an immersive space that delivers a sense of 360 degree sound.
UPDATE: (7/11/2017) Related Work: Lina Hermsdorf, Flattime House
The Three Key Research Concepts that I have taken from these artists are:
1.The idea of using space and sound to create an uneasiness in the audience. I feel that a number of pieces in Cardiff’s ‘Memory Palace’ collection do this incredibly well. The balancing of voice, sound, empty space and props creates an uneasiness and a feeling that something is missing. This is the kind of ghostly feeling that I want to evoke in the my audience.
2.The idea of putting the audience at the centre of the narrative. I feel that ‘The Missing Voice’ does this incredibly well and creates a highly immersive experience for the audience.
3. The importance and power of using 3D sound for immersion. Part of the reason that ‘Forty Part Motet’ was so powerful, I think, is that it appeals to our sense of immersive hearing. We hear in 3D and this piece gives the impression that sound is all around us.
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