We spent the day at Ponta Delgada, the largest municipality on São Miguel.
In the city centre, we came across a rhythmic vent connected to a laundromat.
At the docks, we listened to the waves crash, accompanied by the intermittent rhythms of cars, trucks, and airplanes.
On a quiet residential street, we recorded the sound of runoff reverberating in a sewer.
Later in the afternoon we visited the calderas at Furnas.
We started our day visiting Chá Gorreana – Europe’s oldest, and only remaining Tea plantation. The plantation covers 32 acres of land on São Miguel Island (Azores).
We found a spot near the top of the hill looking onto the sea. Tall trees stood on either side. We recorded the sounds surrounding us, and were especially inspired by the sound of the wind blowing through the trees.
Afterward, made our way to the Tea factory. Industrial drones filled the space. We found a listening spot upstairs between two windows where the tea was drying. We recorded the constant hum of the fan and the rhythms that emerged when the wind rattled the windows.
Sounding the City is an online exhibition dedicated to capturing urban environments and re-imagining their soundscapes through site-specific installations and acoustic interventions.
LOKI designed the visual identity, website and collateral material for the launch event including invitation cards, a newsprint zine, and postcards guiding visitors to the live installations. The identity proudly features a pre-release of FeedType‘s More Gothic typeface.
Each newspaper includes a digital download to STC 001 MUSIC. Contact us if you want a publication!
In November 2016, we launched the first instalment of ‘Sounding the City’ as a week-long exhibition at Espace Pop in Montréal. For our launch, we worked with LOKI on a newspaper publication with photos and information about the sites and installations. The publications were distributed during the launch and exhibition. During the exhibition, three installations were active at different locations in the city. This was indicated on our website and postcards with a map + directions were dispersed at the gallery to help visitors find the installations.
These installations were active during our exhibition. Check out the Sounding the City website for more info!
In October, we hosted If You Got Ears on CKUT 90.3 FM. Listen to each episode here:
Montréal Sound Map Soundtracks featured field recordings from the Montréal Sound Map in combination with musical textures submitted by artists in Montréal and abroad. The field recordings and music were randomly paired and unfolded seamlessly over the course of the show, resulting in a long duration collaborative composition.
Sound & Architecture featured Gascia Ouzounian : a composer, performer, researcher and professor of music at Queen’s University Belfast. Gascia spoke about some of her recent projects, including music she has written for sleeping audiences, and a label she founded that publishes interactive music and sound art. Gascia also talked about a project with the architect Sarah Lappin, called Recomposing the City. This is a project in which architects and sound artists come together to find new ways of approaching the built environment and the city through sound, and the aural dimension of space. Afterward, we shared sounds by a wide range of artists that consider space and architecture in their work.
Urban Ruins & the Industrial Soundscape featured excerpts from the matralab / Pop Montreal Symposium entitled Uncovering Space: including a talk by Andrew Emond who is the author of Under Montréal, a resource established in 2009 to document Montréal’s underground infrastructures. We also played back a series of Smithsonian Folkways train recordings throughout the episode.
Montréal Sound Map Soundtracks II was a continuation of our first episode.