Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-5lx2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-01T22:25:00.839Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Voicing Nature in John Luther Adams's The Place Where You Go to Listen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2012

Tyler Kinnear
Tyler Kinnear*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, 6361 Memorial Road, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z2, Canada
*
E-mail: tkinnear@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

John Luther Adams's The Place Where You Go to Listen (2006), a permanent sound-and-light installation at the Museum of the North in Fairbanks, Alaska, resonates strongly with the geography and ecology of the composer's place of residence. The audiovisual experience is generated through a computer programme that translates real-time data streams from geophysical events into sound and colour signals. The Place functions as an artistic mirror, absorbing data from natural phenomena and reflecting it back to the listener in a deliberately allusive way. As a result, those present are invited to raise their awareness to the ‘unheard vibrations’ of the natural world.

Upon entering the installation, the listener perceives an ongoing, harmonically dense hum. Through immersion, he or she notices change in both the location from which sounds project and the properties of audio and visual signals. Drawing on information theory, this article investigates the process whereby Adams renders scientific data into an audiovisual presentation as well as the role the composer and audience play in attributing meaning to this environmentally driven work. By examining the communicative layers of the installation and exploring the perceptual tendencies of the listener, we can better understand how The Place raises environmental awareness.

Type
Articles
Information
Organised Sound , Volume 17 , Special Issue 3: Sound, Listening and Place II , December 2012 , pp. 230 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, J.L. 1998. Strange and Sacred Noise. In R.M. Schafer and H. Järviluoma (eds.) Yearbook of Soundscape Studies (Northern Soundscapes), vol. 1. Tampere: University of Tampere, Dept. of Folk Tradition.Google Scholar
Adams, J.L. 2009. The Place Where You Go to Listen: In Search of an Ecology of Music. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Adderley, W.P., Young, M. 2009. Ground-breaking: Scientific and Sonic Perceptions of Environmental Change in the African Sahel. Leonardo 42(5): 404–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basanta, A. 2010. Syntax as Sign: The Use of Ecological Models Within a Semiotic Approach to Electroacoustic Composition. Organised Sound 15(2): 125–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bouta, S. 2010. Email correspondence with the author, 25 June.Google Scholar
Bolt, Bruce A. 2004. Earthquakes, 5th edn. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.Google Scholar
Eco, U. 1989. The Open Work, trans. A. Cancogni. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gann, K. 2009. Fairbanks: A Long Ride in a Slow Machine. http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.s/Fairbanks-A-Long-Ride-in-A-Slow_Machine (accessed on 24 October 2009).Google Scholar
Hermann, T., Ritter, H. 1999. Listen to Your Data: Model-Based Sonification for Data Analysis. In S.M. Rahman, et al. (eds.) Advances in Intelligent Computing and Multimedia Systems. Baden-Baden: International Institute for Advanced Studies in System Research and Cybernetics.Google Scholar
Keller, D. 1999. Touch'n'go: Ecological Models in Composition. MFA thesis, School of Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University. Available at https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~dkeller (accessed on 25 April 2011).Google Scholar
Monelle, R. 2000. The Sense of Music. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Nonpop. 2006. ‘The Place’ Interview. Nonpop Show 006. http://www.nonpopmusic.com/2006/04/24/nonpop-show–006-the-place-interview (accessed on 25 October 2009).Google Scholar
The Place Where You Go to Listen. 2007. http://www.youtube.com/user/roadragecafep/u/16/aJF0udcvl8A (accessed on 25 April 2011).Google Scholar
The Place Where You Go to Listen. 2008. http://www.youtube.com/user/thenarrator3p/u/23/jirEmgoXVw4 (accessed on 25 April 2011).Google Scholar
Polli, A. 2003. Atmospheres/Weather Works: The Sonification of Meteorological Data. http://www.andreapolli.com/studio/atmospherics (accessed on 25 April 2011).Google Scholar
Quinn, M. 2008. Design Rhythmics Sonification Research Lab. http://www.drsrl.com (accessed on 25 April 2011).Google Scholar
Schafer, R.M. 1977. The Tuning of the World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Steyn, D. 2009. Interview with the author, 6 October.Google Scholar
Truax, B. 2008. Soundscape Composition as Global Music: Electroacoustic Music as Soundscape. Organised Sound 13(2): 103–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
University of Alaska Museum of the North. 2007. The Place Where You Go to Listen Interactive Guide. CD-ROM.Google Scholar