Sonic Interactions
Audio and video works
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Sonic Interactions is a series of four audio and video works created in outdoor sites across Shetland that explore new forms of composition, installation and performance aesthetics as responses to rural environmental atmospheres of Shetland.
I feel that it is the distinct atmospheres that some places transmit - the particular scenario of stillness, quietness and the predominance of the natural environment - that resonate with me in a unique manner. The ruggedness, the presence of the sea, the minimal presence of humans and of man-made sounds are attributes and qualities that stimulate my creative processes. I am equally fascinated by the sonic possibilities of found objects and everyday materials that I like to re-image and re-use as creative tools that expand my musical language.
Renzo Spiteri
I love the sea. The more time I spend with it, the more I feel the need to engage with it, be with it, live with it. The sea speaks a language that resonates with me in a manner quite hard to articulate. So rather than string words together to express myself, I create work centred around it and around shorelines. Naturally, this is evident in the work that I have created for ‘Sonic Interactions’.
Sonic Interactions is a series of four audio and video works, filmed and recorded on Bressay, Shetland and Yell. The works celebrate phenomena that are mundane in nature but which, through emphasis on the detail of materiality and movement, are the agents of complex events. I find a particular fascination in engaging with the visual and sonic possibilities that lie therein, in taking the time to observe the richness in the natural environments that I am surrounded by. The video and field recordings that I glean become my colouring palette, combining found sounds and everyday objects and materials that I like to re-image and re-use. In two of the four works I have also added my interventions on small percussive instruments or found objects, like wire fences, pebbles and metal gates.
The experiences that emerge from time spent listening, observing and engaging with my surroundings have a strong influence on how I conceive and design site-responsive works like Sonic Interactions. Such sensorial elements quite often are part and parcel of my work as a live performer, and the particular atmospheres that I seek to generate are part of a journey that I share with audiences wherever and however I present my work.
Sonic Interactions is a series of four audio and video works, filmed and recorded on Bressay, Shetland and Yell. The works celebrate phenomena that are mundane in nature but which, through emphasis on the detail of materiality and movement, are the agents of complex events. I find a particular fascination in engaging with the visual and sonic possibilities that lie therein, in taking the time to observe the richness in the natural environments that I am surrounded by. The video and field recordings that I glean become my colouring palette, combining found sounds and everyday objects and materials that I like to re-image and re-use. In two of the four works I have also added my interventions on small percussive instruments or found objects, like wire fences, pebbles and metal gates.
The experiences that emerge from time spent listening, observing and engaging with my surroundings have a strong influence on how I conceive and design site-responsive works like Sonic Interactions. Such sensorial elements quite often are part and parcel of my work as a live performer, and the particular atmospheres that I seek to generate are part of a journey that I share with audiences wherever and however I present my work.
Given the nature of the work, Sonic Interactions should be experienced using headphones/earphones or good speakers.
#4
Sonic Interactions: Wester Ayre, Burravoe, Yell
Launch date: 22/April/2021
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One of the many wonderful things about the creative journey of Sonic Interactions is the balance between planned work and serendipitous encounters. The chance discovery of Wester Ayre at Burravoe offered a plurality of events that contrasted with the stillness of the coastline so close to where I was standing. I often think about how privileged I am to be able to experience places and their sounds through field recording equipment, to be able to listen to, see and share what might not be so easily accessible. Wading around the shingle beach at Wester Ayre as the water from the burn gurgled and gushed down to meet the sea, I listened and looked for different angles, features and sounds that I could capture with the only recording device that I had at hand – my GoPro. All sounds are therefore from the on-board microphone of the camera.
#3
Sonic Interactions: Sumburgh Head
Launch date: 15/April/2021
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I find that there is something quite stimulating and inspiring in the combination of strong winds and the sea, feeling the force of these natural elements while struggling to stand still on one spot. It was the particular orchestration of various aeolian sounds around the lighthouse that I based the sonic texture on, while I was drawn to the constantly shifting patterns of crushing waves and swelling sea contrasting with the immobility of rock and structures. Metal is a predominate exciter of sonic textures in the field recordings I made and to these I added my own on-site interventions of resonating metal gates, Chinese cymbals and long sustaining metal sound discs.
#2
Sonic Interactions: Burn at Cullingsburgh, Bressay
Launch date: 08/April/2021
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This burn, with its gentle flow of water down trenches, stones, cobbles and pebbles, is the right mood-setter for the rest of the wonderful walk at Voe of Cullingsburgh. This setting inspired me to create Sonic Interactions: Burn at Cullingsburgh that incorporates field recordings, visuals and my own intervention on found materials by striking pebbles, playing fence wire with a double-bass bow and recording a small metal gate which I resampled to create a drone effect for the piece.
#1
Sonic Interactions: Loch of Brough, Bressay
Launch date: 01/April/2021
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Last winter we experienced quite a few days of snow and ice around Shetland. For days and days on end, I visited various lochs around Bressay, monitoring the changes in condition of the frozen waters. I waited, knowing that at some point, these solidified water surfaces will start to crack and melt. That’s the moment I wanted to capture on my sound and video recording devices, an event that I had not yet experienced first-hand. On a bitterly cold February afternoon, Loch of Brough turned into a spectacle of movement and sound events and, with camera, microphones and hydrophones, I focused on a particular area of the loch to glean these occurrences. Ice plates moved like a giant muted chime, an instrument of immense proportions excited by strong winds and a-rhythmic waves. The sum of such events was, in my view, so sonically rich that the invitation was to sit back, record and listen.
Sonic Interactions: Loch of Brough is a work based on field recordings and video as the result of my personal experience of the contrast between the water’s solidity and stillness while the loch was frozen, and its transitional state to fluidity.
Sonic Interactions: Loch of Brough is a work based on field recordings and video as the result of my personal experience of the contrast between the water’s solidity and stillness while the loch was frozen, and its transitional state to fluidity.
Given the nature of the work, Sonic Interactions should be experienced using headphones/earphones or good speakers.
Photo gallery
Sonic Interactions was commissioned by Shetland Arts as part of Refresh Now, supported by Creative Scotland and Shetland Charitable Trust.
Presented at:
University of Glasgow, June 2024, Music and/as Process Conference
Presented at:
University of Glasgow, June 2024, Music and/as Process Conference