In preparation for my new sound work Pillars at Profound Sound Festival tomorrow in Folkestone, I have been testing out my composition in a variety of different tubes - a slide, a cardboard tube and a sawn off lamp-post.
The work is due to be installed inside a metal pipe, in Folkestone's Payers Park - which is an artwork in itself, having been designed by Architecture + Art group MUF for the Folkestone Triennial. The metal pipe is half buried in the ground, with ends that protrude so that you can speak, shout, sing, make noise through it. It makes good use of the slope that the park is built into and it actively encourages SOUND in this play space.
But also, the pipe makes the perfect site for this sound work, which is a performance of musical pillars being played. In India there are numerous temples designed with musical pillars as their main supports, these pillars are made of granite (a naturally resonant material) and are shaped and positioned to play exact musical notes, when tapped (tapped like you would when playing a piano). These structures are effectively large musical instruments, but to the eye appear as usual, highly decorative, stone temples.
Of my pipe tests today, the slide was good, it was good to be in it and listen in there, the sound had that metallic quality to it.
The sawn off lamp post was a weaker version of these two ... not so great.. It was too short to do much.
The cardboard pipe was my favourite. It gave great resonance and a slight muffle, it made listening feel like it was from far far away.
