Imagine this: you are walking down
covered pathways on a university campus. It's a cold but sunny autumn day. Random sounds occur at unexpected
places. A chime sounds and artificial wind blows out of hidden speakers.
Disembodied voices make important-sounding statements. It’s a bit like being a character in a movie,
with your own soundtrack.
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| Ruth at the O.U. |
To celebrate the fiftieth
anniversary of its conception, the Open University commissioned four artists to
develop works celebrating the university’s strongest fields. As my partner Ruth
works at the Milton Keynes campus we took advantage of a sunny Sunday afternoon
on 10 November 2013 to check out a work titled ‘On Air.’ The newspaper advertisement
described it as ‘an immersive sound experience.’
???
At least, that was my initial reaction. I wasn’t sure what an ‘immersive sound experience’ was until we actually walked through it. It is the sort of thing you really need to experience to understand.
The creator of this experience is
Caroline Devine, an artist who creates exclusively with sound. Among other
things, she experiments with the way different tones resonate against a
particular material. Tones in a place enclosed by brick walls will vibrate
differently than an area surrounded by wood or metal. Of course the size and
shape of the space makes a difference. We experience this every day, but how
often do we actually listen to what is happening?
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| Jane Muir's 'For and Against' |
To create the work, Caroline hid speakers along
the paths of the campus art walk to play a repeating track of voices and
sounds.
When we began the walk we found
the artist sitting by herself near the start point of the installation,
microphone in hand. Yes, she was recording, she told us. That’s what she does.
She was inspired, Caroline said, by the
university’s original name: the
University of the Air.
 |
| Tom Harvey tree sculpture |
The University of the Air was
first proposed in 1963 as a correspondence college to improve educational
opportunities throughout Britain. Today, according to the university’s web
site, it provides long distance training to more than 240,000 students from the
United Kingdom and Europe.
Personally I think they should
have kept the original name.
To create the soundtrack itself, ‘I
recorded the lecturers and plundered the (university) archives,’ Caroline told us. You can check out this interview with Caroline about the Milton Keynes installation on Youtube here.
The brochure of the event
describes the work as ‘a 60 channel sound installation which transforms the air
and animates the architectural and acoustic space around it.’
The brochure
goes on to say that 'Caroline has explored the theme of OU research in design
and technology, integrating an acoustic layer which allows fragments of
thoughts, voices, knowledge, research and histories of The Open University to
float on the air.’
I have to say we enjoyed the work, we enjoyed the walk, and we were
definitely more aware of our surroundings as a result of having this
experience.
