LAETITIA SONAMI

"Shifted"

&

"Hommage à Tudor "

I placed ubiquitous electrical boxes behind some existing benches around campus. The boxes play sounds from other areas on campus, hence the idea of "shifting" the sonic landscape of the campus. I imagine that in most cases people will not notice these juxtaposed sounds, but if they sit long enough, they might notice that the sounds around them do not belong to the space they inhabit. It is somewhat inspired by James Turrell "Nada" installation, where you only can perceive the pool of light if you stay long enough in the dark room.

For "Hommage à David Tudor", I took from his recording "Neural Synthesis" the electronic sounds which most resemble birds and placed them over one of the bridges in the campus.

Some notes while in progress:

questions: shifted according to which axis? geographical, social, symbolic, temporal..?

locations to consider: bench by pool (-->sound of fountain a little further away - it feeds the pond), bench behind art building, by the jogging trail.. facing the back door of building - plastic funky broken bench in front of stately door... (---> what sounds?), benches on bridge between cafeteria and Lisser (--> sound of mills creek from other angle and/or tennis court), bench by fountain in back of Mills Hall (--> sound of voices from cafeteria plaza??) , bench on bridge going from Mills Hall to faculty residency area, under trees (--> perfect for Tudor's neural synthesis bird-like sounds), bench by residency hall, above from education building, towering back of campus (--> Mills swimming pool sounds)

sounds essential to Mills: mills creek, airplanes, freeway, campanile, birds in the trees by back of campus, soft talking on adams plaza with water fountain in the back, freeway, lots of water in different places of the campus,airplanes, swimming pool, tennis, running track (did not hear anything on sunday)?, small pieces of sentences as girls walk by, more freeway..