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every n seconds

This is the ‘soundtrack’ that comes from a site-specific sound installation I created in the Making Time Garden at Lancaster University (an artwork in itself created by Jonathan Raisin and Elizabeth Willow).
This installation is based on an often used phrase when we are wanted to be impressed by certain statistics: every N seconds X happens. While not statistically accurate, it is a powerful approximation that helps us understand statistics in a more empirical way: we can physically count these seconds and become aware of how often something (often horrible) occurs.
This idea is taken as basis for this installation and these recurring events are presented in aural form so we can ‘hear the statistics’ instead of just reading them or trying to comprehend them in other ways. The installation consists of numerous statistical cycles that sometimes overlap and collide with each other.
This installation is also based on an opposition of ‘here’ and ‘there’ in the sense that the shed with the piano is metaphorically thought of as ‘here’ and the sounds outside – as ‘there’, which is the case with statistics as they are almost always ‘there’.

Published on September 5, 2013