Technique: speakers, media players, amplifiers, voice, text

Meridian Space
Beijing, China
http://www.meridian-online.com/space/

April 10–April 24, 2016

Each day of March 2016, I collected new texts written about sounds encountered in my daily travels through Beijing. In addition to these texts I collected daily sounds, recording on the go. These sounds were integrated with the numerous texts in the final installation, played through four speakers installed in the exhibition space. Some of these sounds might parallel the sounds written about in the texts, but many will not.

"Drifting" is part sound-journal, part investigation into our awareness of the sounds around us and in particular will give residents of Beijing a different perspective on how the sound environments in their city have been perceived from the ears of a visitor, investigating the city each day through a conscious focus on sound.

hear an excerpt from the installation

Some of the texts from the installation:

Hutong side street
so quiet
sometimes
only hear the
sound of my
own feet
trudging past
temple, police
ma and pa shop
and now a
scooter whizzes
electronically
by my side.

It's still too
early in the
year for all
the trees
to bloom, they
stretch across
neighborhoods now
skeletons in the
wind and rain
I wonder what
their leaves sound
like in the
summer breeze.

Down a famous
shopping lane
the sound of
consumption
pop radio and
video display
giggling teenagers
out to play
tourists snap their
cameras loudly
each shutter click
a tiny detonation
in my ear.

When I entered
the courtyard
only ventilator
hum and dusting
broom whisking
Beijing dust to
the street
from whence it
came and to
which I return
bicycle bell
warning my
way.

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