FROM CHAOS TO HARMONY
Sam Auinger was the first visiting practitioner I have had pleasure to listen to. His work inspired me deeply and opened my ears and brain to another part of the aural world.
The idea of gathering urban noises and converting them into the soothing harmony seems like an utopian way of embracing the world we live in – and it works.
Sam, together with Bruce Odland, travelled around the world building sound installations that were gathering all surrounding noises and harmonising them in tuning tubes tubes, using the overtones of the sounds coming in. They were then played in real time in nearby locations characterised by great acoustics, using subwoofers, full range and smaller speakers, often design just for the installations.
I found one of the stories especially amusing. One of the installations was taking place in church, visited by a group of workers. Their moods were rather low, they were arguing and in general feeling anxious while entering the building. This stopped gradually as they got gradually devoured by the symphony of noise. After turning the speakers off, arguing started again and stopped when the sound came back on.
During our sound walk i recorded a lot of footage simply walking around. When I listened back to it, I could hear how the shores of thames, the concrete surrounding the river and the bridges helped to create the harmony out of the virtual noise. One of the examples below:
Here are some examples of Sam’s work and couple of links to his and B. Odland’s website:
https://www.samauinger.de/projects/