the sound wall

last weekend was the culminating event for the residency i've been doing at the collingwood housing estate. i have much to write about - a lot to reflect on and update, but have been quite busy showing people around and attending to other paperwork i neglected in the lead-up.

but i just wanted to post this pic of the sound wall. i think it's my favourite image of all the projects so far.

from two months of daily listening projects, the sound wall is an artifact to all the sounds on the estate.
it has had the most amazing responses from locals and visitors alike.
i have specific stories to tell about people's reactions to it, and more to explain but for now here's just a little pic.

The Listening Booth

I'll be wheeling this baby out to Harmsworth Park on the weekend for the final project of my residency at the Collingwood Housing Estate.

I'm running guided tours, which are for residents, but if you'd like to come along, leave me a comment and i'll see if I can save you a place. If you're reading about this on here you're probably partially interested in what i've been up to and likely interested in socially-engaged practice of sorts.

the sound of the underground

As well as the daily (or at least regular) process of listening to the estate, and the compilation of people's favourite songs (song of the day), i'm also capturing the sounds of the actual underground car park.

acoustically, it's amazing and i wish i had more concrete sound skills to be able to work with it better.
but, failing that, i've put a stack of mics up around the space, plugged them into the neighbourhood house's mix desk and have been listening to a beautiful mix of all the sounds of the space at once (perhaps a bit like what i do above ground, but more technical - less conceptual).

i'm from that i'm going to plug the mix into a headphone amplifier and fix a stack of headphone jack cables to the areas that are accessible from above ground: grills, grates, doorways, drains, etc.

so that peeps on the estate can come and listen to the sounds of the underground by plugging their own headphones in.

i'm a bit stuck as to how to have a nice finale now. it keeps changing, based on the difficulty i'm having in a) organising basic things and b) my motivation.

for some reason, i'm struggling with it at the moment and i'm not sure what that's about. annoying, actually, as there's rather a lot to do.

writing about it helps a little, which is handy. because then i get to tell you peeps all about what i've been doing at the same time.

there'll be more info at hand, but put these details into your diary:


ARTIST TALKS/PANEL DISCUSSION

Art and The Housing Estate
Friday 4th November
3pm - 5pm
The Underground

with artists from the AURA Project, Greyspace, Tony Reck and panel moderated by Benjamin Cittadini.


LISTENING PARTY/OPEN DAY
Culmination of my residency at Collingwood Housing Estate

Saturday 19th/Sunday 20th November (TBC)
2 - 6pm

Listen to the Underground through the in built listening stations
Pick up a copy of the Collingwood Playlist - everyone from the estate's favourite songs
See the Sound Walls - lists of all the sounds heard on the estate, as the Listener-in-Residence

today was a busy day

- 1 wall of the men's shed painted black (in preparation for a sound wall)
- a listening project done with the year 8 music class from collingwood college
- emails sent about upcoming artist talks and panel discussion
- all 3 panellists locked in (although i just realised they're all blokes. hmm)
- 6 favourite songs discussed
- PA delivered again (mics up next week)
- fairy lights bought in preparation for a shoot tmrw
- some lines mostly learned.
- plus plenty of discussion with local arty types

my favourite song is

during the residency, i have been asking residents and locals what their favourite song is. i'm compiling them and will be making a CD/mix tape/playlist. it's an audio snapshot of the area and a great way to get people talking about their relationship to music.

so many times i end up being serenaded by impromptu singing - it's actually really beautiful. and i often wish i had a film crew with me to capture my interactions.

i've also noticed that children and teenagers respond immediately to the question. they don't even think about it - they know that they have a favourite song and they know what it is.

no umming and ahhing, blocked about all the songs that have every meant anything. they're absolutely in the moment.

and i realised that i really am old.

i have NO idea about most of the songs that the kids and the teenagers love.
justin bieber rates highly, much to my chagrin. as does LMFAO. hilarious.

another interesting piece to note has been the prevalence of love songs. most people's favourite songs are about love. i've been writing up a song of the day on the blackboards outside the towers (that also convey the weather, anything on in the estate and the date), and most of them have had love in the title.

unsurprising when you think about it.


image credit: pinched from nikki's blog

movie night. not.

well, that was a bit of a failed attempt at doing a nice little thing for the residents.

saturday night was slated for a silent movie to be shown on the doorway to the underground. it didn't pan out. actually it bombed out in spectacular fashion - and i don't know if i can even learn any more lessons from it, apart from the fact that shit happens sometimes.

thanks to friday spent having to put out (miscommunication-instigated) spot fires and remove this wall work, i only had saturday to properly prepare. i was still sewing the white screen at 5pm on saturday night - breaking 3 sewing machine needles in the process.

i wasn't really handling it well already.

plus i was trying to organise it all on my own. not a good idea, actually.  i should have organised for mark or one of the others to help.

anyway, in the process of putting up the screen (with tony reck's help), i buggered the roller door.
and then the projection wasn't as good a throw as i remembered.
and then it started to rain.
i realised then that i was going to have to cancel. and it was 7:30 already.
and then kamil the security guy showed up. dammit!

flustered, i managed to run to the ATM to get kamil half his money, seeing as he had showed up. then i rang kaukau to find out what to do about the busted roller door, which she thankfully handled.

i began to take down the projector and speakers, etc and in there somewhere burst into tears. it was kinda ugly. and sad.

anyway, thanks to the shit weather (and not a lot of notice, truth be told), no one really turned up. which was ace and despairing at the same time.

my saturday night ended up being spent sitting with security, chatting about the state of the world, waiting for damian from maintenance to arrive so that he could fix the door.

quite the debácle.

however, i do still think a movie night is in order, so i'll reschedule it. i might try it in a different spot - only because the street light really drowns out the projection. or i'll make sure i get a better projector.

sigh.

listening poem

i never thought of what i did as poetry at all. until i had to explain to DHS what i did. saying it was a 'poem' was the quickest, simplest and easiest was to talk about the list of sounds i hear. then i went to electrofringe and the peeps from australian poetry and the new young writers festival said it was totally poetry. interesting. on tuesday i started writing up the list of sounds i've been listening to on the glass in the foyer at 240 wellington street. i did another installment of it this morning and two people came up to read what i was doing. and aesha, a girl who lives in the wellington street block said that it was a poem and she liked reading it. when i talked about how i came to the words, she agreed that when you break it down like that, we listen to a lot, don't we. in fact, she liked the idea so much she's going to join me listening tomorrow afternoon! what a great result that is.