Caged Birds (Augmentation)

Publication (diffusions)

Four-channel version diffused at the MTI (Music, Technology and Innovation) New Media Concert, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. 18 March 2015. link

Four-channel version diffused at Invisible Places - Sounding Cities, Viseu, Portugal. 18-20 July 2014.

RadioCona broadcast, Ljubljana, Slovenia. 16 February 2014.

Symposium on Acoustic Ecology, University of Kent, UK. 8-9 November 2013.

New version for the Hilltown New Music Festival, Castlepollard, Co. Westmeath, Ireland. 20-21 July 2013.

Premiered in “Cagean Mix #1”, at the White Box Gallery, New York City, USA. 20 December 2011.

Description

This piece derives from a single recording of the dawn chorus in my back garden. Various transformations, subtle and otherwise, have been made to the birdsong. The title is a play on John Cage, but also a reminder that a recording is a sound that is no longer at liberty.

The piece started in stereo but was revised for subsequent diffusions before I recreated it in quad.

radioCona

radioCona is the “temporary project radio for contemporary arts”, Ljubljana. Starting Sunday 15 February 2014 and for five consecutive days, radioCona broadcast on the FM bands, starting exactly at nightfall. “This is the time when the atmosphere is no longer filled with the fine sunlight, when the sun reaches 18 degrees or more below the horizon.”

“Caged Birds” was played on the Monday evening. There is something nice about a composition based on a dawn chorus being transposed to the night-time.

See Also

I was a featured artist at Invisible Places - Sounding Cities, and gave a talk on this piece.

At the same event I presented a research paper, “Sounding Place: Towards a Practice of Field Recoding”, that expanded upon my praxis.

Thanks

Thanks to the organisers at Ear to the Earth for the Cage centenary project.