Nigel undertook an Artist in Residence at The Marine Mammal Laboratory (Tropical Marine Science Institute) of the National University of Singapore; developing a project for ISEA2008 exhibited at the National Museum of Singapore, July ~ August 2008.
Run Silent, Run Deep creates a multi-vocal and multi-cultural AudioPortrait of Singapore – in particular the area around the harbour. The interface of this work enables visitors to move through a detailed interactive map of the city, listening to sound recordings made in a wide variety of places and social contexts. The sonic map also focuses on Singapore’s relationship with the sea and marine ecology by employing a range of hydrophone techniques.
Users can navigate the sonic cartography via a controller triggering a complex real-time audio mix in the 12.2 immersive surround system.
Interactive audio cartography, driving a 12.2 immersive speaker rig.
Hydrophone location – Floating fish farm near Palau Ubin
Interactive map interface driving a 12.2 speaker rig.
Short indicative mix, the project has thousands of audio and image files capable of being mixed on the fly and dynamically spatialised.
Catalogue Notes:
Run Silent, Run Deep is an ironic reference to the motto of submarine captains in WWII who knew that the silence of their craft was the key to remaining undetected. In contrast, this artwork is a whole-hearted embrace of the richly sonic world deep within the ocean. The artist will be bringing this auditory world to the surface in an immersive surround-sound experience, which will be located within the gallery.
Before the exhibition, the artist will be creating an ‘audio portrait’ of Singapore harbour by recording underwater acoustics, running the gamut from sonar to whalesong. This library of sounds will then be ‘composed’ as a virtual cartographic environment which invites the visitor to navigate space and simultaneously create a dynamic 3-dimensional soundscape.
A (very) early morning reef walk with a crew of Marine Biologists.
A narrow escape.
This project employs the AudioNomad system to geo-spatially locate hydrophone recordings and other marine audio data, rendering this into a rich map-based composition that allows live ‘mixing’ in the form of Virtual marine journeys. AudioNomad is a collaborative Art + Science Research and development project between the artist (Sonic Objects: Sonic Architecture) and Dr Daniel Woo of the School of Computer Science and Engineering, at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
