Frequencies, 2009 «back next»

City Hall

Sound Art Feature

Balmoral Room, Brisbane, Australia

ON-GOING PROJECT

Frequencies is a sound installation that samples hundreds of non-linguistic human soundbytes from television and films soundtracks, redits them into their own unique soundtracks and then re-broadcasts them through popular radio stations through the use of MOD(ified) iPod FM transmitters.

These vocalization are lifted audio segments (tracks) from TV programs and movies which include moans, grunts, whines, screams, sighing, shrieking, silences and other verbal gestures which signify discontinuities and gaps in the steady stream of words within language. This hack or MOD(ified hardware) uses broadcasted sound tracks from multiple iPod’s with a MOD FM antenna that broadcasts over the top of popular radio stations creating the illusion of a pirate radio station existing inside the gallery.

Frequenices investigates the origins of language and semiotics through unintelligible vocalizations. These fragments of "speech" are cut out from their original contexts and re-mixed into a series of symphonic tracks in order to examine a pre-language state; language that existed before humans developed sophisticated structures of communication. Some of these vocalized expressions include moans, screams, grunts, groans, laughter, sighs, and silent gaps between words.

This new work is less about looking at the uses of language (words) as a form of political control through propaganda, seduction or manipulation, but a philosophical exploration into the formation of many languages through the processes and expressive nature of vocalization. These edited vocals are stored as audio tracks on iPods which have their FM transmitter modified in order for their antennae range to be increased.

When played, this then allows the iPods audio track(s)to be transmitted over a short distance (40-50m). Inside the gallery will be a series of radios, which are tuned in to these exact freqencies from each different iPod, picking up their audio tracks through their antennas.