More coming soon about a new sound installation presented at Newhailes, a National Trust for Scotland building on the northern edge of Edinburgh.

The work was devised and created in collaboration with artist Anna Chapman whose exhibition “Subjects of Melancholy Retrospection” has drawn extensively from the books that once belonged to the library and now reside in the National Library of Scotland.

Subjects for Melancholy Retrospection
Newhailes, near Edinburgh, Scotland, 5 August – 6 September 2010
private view Wednesday 4 August 6-8pm
additional late opening Thursday 26 August 6-8pm

More information about the estate and how to get there is available here; www.nts.org.uk/Property/47/.

As audiences head down to see a performance, the copper wire curtain is switched on and sounds reverberated up and down the staircase “pre-mixing” sounds extracted from rehearsals of the play they are about to see.

On the 29th October 2006, the installation was “performed live” as part of the opening celebrations of the Traverse Cubed events.

This project was supported by http://www.7hings.co.uk.

Hall Akustika has positioned microphones at sonically interesting and locally significant sites around the city of Hall (There are 7 other sound installations happening at this time). The soundscapes are sent to a server which then feeds the sprouting curtain in the Platzl, a cafe square in the centre of the city.

As wires in the curtain are crossed, circuits are closed, releasing sound into the Platzl. Different sounds of the city are connected with one another in randomly chaotic order.

The curtain serves two purposes; providing a musical performance interface, with coffee drinkers looking on, meanwhile exposing the potential of network communications to cause misunderstanding and complexity through the physical mechanism of crossed wires.

The screen is very sensitive and will react to the slightest impulse, even from wind so the copper wire screen could also be thought of as digital wind chime.

A radio programme about Hall Akustika was made for the Kunstradio show, aired on Sunday June 11th at 11pm.
http://www.kunstradio.at/2006A/11_06_06.html

Some press information online here;
http://www.tirol.com/szene/innsbruck/38713/index.do

The installation in use inside the klangkugel

The image is analysed for colour content and this data is used to create a spectral envelope over sound sources collected from around the sound tower, ranging from ambient sound textures outside the building to sound from other installations on display at the same time.

Visitors sit on reactive cushions to trigger sonic and visual interruptions to the state of the klangkugel (sound ball).

The view from the camera is disturbed by the actions of people sitting. Visitors watch this on the small TV surveillance monitors.

The project involved two mirrors, web camera and sound.  As visitors peered inbetween two mirrors overhanging one another, they interrupted the