film installation by John Grzinich
Wriezener Bahnhof / 04.07. 08
The Location Sound Films project starts with the concept of site-specific artistic activity while integrating contemporary sound recording practices that cross the areas of ‘performance’, ‘field recording’, ‘improvisation’ and ‘documentation’. With the site being the prime focus, the artist as actor and instigator uses the means of sound to investigate the qualities of the surrounding space and his place in it. Various techniques are used to make recordings, some more clearly visible than others, depending on the type of sound captured (stereo condenser microphones or piezo transducer contact microphones). Video in this case correlates more closely with film as it is an attempt to make use of the image as non-narrative document on site-specific, location based sound activity.
This concept has been integrated into other projects such as the Riga Sound Locations, which was a four day workshop that took place at various spaces around the capitol city of Latvia. The aim of the workshop was to visit 6 different locations around the city in order to investigate site-specific sound activity related to each place. The sites included an abandoned apartment, construction site, former power station, abandoned warehouse, old military airport and a backyard. Apart from the backyard all of these locations were temporary in the sense that they either being developed or destroyed at some point in the near future. So not only were we documenting our activities we attempted to capture the transitional feeling of the spaces.
The Location Sound Films have also been utilized in both single and multi-channel installations as well as various lectures and presentations to illustrate sound recording practices in location based artistic activity. The selected films for Tuned City focus on the sonic qualities of architectural spaces and structures in both naturally occurring forms and site-specific improvisation using found objects.