ABOUT EDITIONS

“A soundscape consists of events heard not objects seen.” – R. Murray Schafer

Soundwalk Editions features artists and composers who use environmental field recordings as a point of departure in their work.  By recording sounds outside of the conventional studio you are in the act field recording, audibly engaged with ears that gradually refine a sonic experience, like the eye looking through a camera lens.  Field recording  is often synonymous with phonography, in which sound takes the place of image in documenting a location, physical act, or a natural occurrence.  Drawing attention to the quality and experiential nature that can exist in the soundscapes of our environment, these works allow the viewer to have an intimate experience with the various compositional approaches practiced by each individual artist.  Through listening to these recordings we have the opportunity to become aware of the various dialects that can exist in the language of field recording compositions.

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Artist:        murmer
Title:         4 spaces  | ©
Date:        2009
Duration:  15’00

photo by: Patrick McGinley

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THE SOUND

During a recent tour of the northeastern United States I made a collection of recordings inside the spaces in which I would perform.  The individual recordings were to be used as the starting point of the performance in the same location, a slow sonic zooming-in to the self-same space shared with an audience, and an experiment in natural resonant feedback caused by playing the sound of a space back into itself.  A handful of the spaces were particularly interesting, and I collect those here to highlight the notion of no space being neutral, and of each having it’s own living, breathing character.  The spaces we hear here are St Stephen’s Church in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the front lobby of the Baker Center for the Arts at Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania, and the gallery space at the Pyramid Atlantic in Washington DC.  At either end of this collection is a different kind of space, and one much closer to home: this is the sound of my mother’s backyard, on the edge of marshland in Abington, Massachusetts, with my personal favorite late-night sound of distant passing trains.

THE ARTIST

Patrick McGinley (aka murmer) is an American born sound, performance, and radio artist who has lived and worked in Europe since 1996.  In 2002 he co-founded framework, an organisation that produces a weekly radio show consecrated to field recording and phonography. His work concentrates on the framing of sounds from our environment which normally pass through our ears unnoticed and unremarked, but which out of context become unrecognisable, alien and extraordinary: crackling charcoal, a squeaking escalator, a buzzing insect, or one’s own breath. More recently McGinley has been giving presentations, workshops, and performances based on the exploration of site-specific sound and sound as definition of space.  In live performance his initial interest in field recording has developed into an attempt to integrate and resonate found sounds, found objects, specific spaces, and moments in time, in order to create a direct and visceral link with an audience and location.

Links: www.murmerings.com