duncanspeakman.net

An MP3 soundwalk for two people in the Soho area of London.

‘what we have done’ imagines a film being made in a dystopian soho of the future. As the dust settles on a post credit crisis world what’s left of our trust and values when everything is ‘to let’.

This work was commissioned by the Soho Theatre as part of ‘Everything must go’.

To experience this work one participant should download the soundfile [ LEFT ] and the other person should download [ RIGHT ]

(right click if you’re on a pc and choose save as or hold down the CTRL key and click if you’re on a mac. )

Both of you should then start outside the door of the Soho Theatre on Dean St. and press play simultaneously. The walk is approximately 18mins long. Please bring something of personal value with you.

‘what we have done’ by duncan speakman

[additional voice] Jane McCarthy [script editor] Emilie Grenier [thanks] Nina Steiger, Sheena Bucktowonsig

A short musical ‘soundtrack for walking’ commissioned by Meeting House Gallery. A film without pictures for the streets of Illminster, inspired by the walking guides from the Illminster Forum, each MP3 player came with an attached set of walking instructions

’100 meters..’ allows the listener to hear further than they can see.
Like an aural telescope, recordings made by the artist on journeys between the four venues involved in ”the animal gaze’ are played as if your range of hearing was constantly expanding, letting the audience build a sonic picture of routes through Plymouth.

Drawing on the listening practices of both animal predators and prey, ’100 meters…’ frames these sounds with text inspired by the legacy of journeys in blues songs.

Commissioned by Groundworks South West as part of ‘Animal Gaze’.
the walks can be downloaded from here, each is designed to be listened to outside the venue in the filename.

A series of micro-sound walks in the Redfern area of Sydney.
These mixtures of music, sound design and spoken word are recreations of moments in the lives of local residents.

Tracing the layered communities of the indigenous, colonial and immigrant residents of the area, the audio work was accompanied by a handmade folded guide containing additional writing and visual guides to the routes.
Commissioned by Performance Space.
The entire pack of pieces and map for printing can be downloaded from here

a new soundwalk commission by Artmusic for their Palace Intrusions project ( http://palaceintrusions.org.uk/ ).
This is a circular walk and as such can be started from anywhere on the perimeter of the Bishops Palace in Wells, Somerset. The audio was created by collating and processing recordings of 50 walks I made around the perimeter.

The audiofile for the walk can be downloaded from the Palace Intrusions website or you can borrow an MP3 layer from Wells Museum.

‘always something somewhere else’ is a GPS based soundwalk that builds itself as you experience it. To create it I worked with Hewlett Packard in Bristol and their new mscape software ( http://www.mscapers.com ).

In the work the listener is asked to locate various substances that form the contemporary urban environment (glass, stone, concrete etc.). As they mark the location of each one they begin to hear interwoven stories connecting them to remote locations around the world, soundtracked with a generative music score. The narratives are progressed and concluded as the listener returns to the locations they chose. The piece is reflective and sometimes melancholy, it touches on issues of climate change and global awareness, but ultimately encourages the listener to treasure the moments around them…

collaboration with Birgit Binder for Fierce Festival.

Peace and quiet can be difficult to come by in the city, so wouldn’t it be useful if we had a version of Siân Lloyd who could say when the cars are going to start beeping outside your window or the neighbours are going to turn their radio up as if it was predictable as weather fronts?

Based on research involving interviews with local residents, ambient sound recordings and the measurement of environmental sound levels, NoiseForecast is an online audio show created daily over the course of Fierce festival which aims to help you find the ideal time and location to experience either a few moments of tranquility or to immerse yourself in the aural rush of urban activity.

for more info please visit http://noiseforecast.com

UPDATE : This walk is now also available as a GPS aware soundwalk on the mScape platform. Please visit http://www.mscapers.com for more info.

‘feelings are always local’ recently launched at The Brewhouse in Taunton as part of the anti-static festival. A downloadable MP3 is available by right-clicking here. If you want to do the walk it starts from outside the cafe entrance to The Brewhouse theatre in Taunton, and heads across th car park into town. You can download the file on to your own MP3 player or pick one up from The Brewhouse bar. (please note that parts of the walk are inaccessible after 6pm)

play audio of walk by clicking icon below

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what: pre-recorded soundwalk
where: West Town Farm, Ide
when: September 2007

Collaboration with Hannah Standen for ’9days of Art’ at Organic Arts
A soundwalk through the disused railway cutting on the farm land.

created as part of textFestival 2006 as part of a residency with Organic Arts. ’10 walks’ explored the soundworld of a small farm in Devon as it changed in response to the crisis in UK agriculture.