Sound Circuit

Sound Circuit, Image Caption Test

Sound Circuit was a suite of four temporary sound projects commissioned by the Adam Art Gallery to take place in public spaces around Wellington.

Using various downtown sites, Sound Circuit explored the city through sound. Featuring the work of Rachel Shearer, Dugal McKinnon, Kaleb Bennett and Dion Workman, it listened in on the rumbles and reverberations of the city’s streets and public spaces, enticing audiences to re-think their everyday urban environments.

Wellington-based composer Dugal McKinnon worked with Wellington’s Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences to construct a multi-channel sound installation based on turning real-time seismic data streams into sound. Speakers built into the architectural fabric of Victoria University’s Rutherford House, literally gave voice to the constant geophysical processes of New Zealand

Sound designer/editor and experimental musician, Rachel Shearer installed an ambient soundscape at either end of the foot tunnel that runs into Wellington’s Railway Station. She aimed to gently engulf pedestrians’ senses as they walked through the tunnel, so distracting them from their usual experiences, to create a moment of aural suspension.

In previous work, Kaleb Bennett has staged ‘audio actions’ in customised cars that take passengers around a city, so utilising an entire city as a site for his work. For Sound Circuit, Bennett further developed his interest in mapping the urban environment by using a vehicle as a sound ‘machine’ which surprised and engaged pedestrians as they walked the city’s streets.

Visual artist, composer and improviser of experimental music, Dion Workman conducted a series of sound events, or musical movements that were staged over the course of a week in different public locations throughout the city. Performed by four players, each activating a sound-generating object, these movements described a trajectory across the city that unsettled its familiar topography.

The works took place at different times over a period of six weeks at the following locations:

Dion Workman 13 – 20 March 2008
public spaces around Wellington City

Dugal McKinnon 28 March – 20 April 2008
Bunny Street entrance to Victoria University’s Rutherford House

Rachel Shearer 28 March – 20 April 2008
Foot tunnel linking Lambton Interchange and Wellington Railway Station

Kaleb Bennett 31 March – 20 April 2008
Streets of the greater Wellington region