We've very pleased and proud to be able to post online the fantastic works that were created by our composers and workshop participants as part of the Barrow-In-Furness workshop.

These works were all presented as part of the concert that took place at 'Cookes Studios' on October 4th 2014. 

Attached is a copy of the concert programme.

A big thank you to everyone who took part in the workshops and all of those who came along to experience the concert.

Dear All,

We are writing to let you know the great news that, we have a date and a confirmed venue for the Hear Th↓s Space. Keep Saturday the 4th of October 2014 free! It will be at Cookes Studio Barrow In Furness (where we had the workshop, but upstairs)

We now have to set a bit of a schedule.

Submission of ideas and proposals 5th of September

Submission of pieces for mastering 20th of September

Mastering (involves just balancing the sound so the pieces sound consistent but this will be done with your approval)

Mastering Finishing 27th of September

Rehearsal / Concert 4th of October

If you have any queries please let us know as soon as possible. I trust you have all successfully downloaded the sound files and have had a good listen.

In the next few days we will send you some pictures and background about the building and of course you will have your memories of Barrow and all the information on line as inspiration to embrace or ignore.

Both Brona and Simon are on hand for any technical logistical or artistic queries you may have. We can be contacted via email and if you wish we can arrange a Skype of Facetime or just a chat on the phone.

Look forward to hearing from you.

HTS

Hello all, 

Here are some lovely pictures of our workshop in Barrow to serve as inspiration for your ideas. More importantly here are the links to everyones sound files.

CLICK HERE!

Now there is no excuse not to get composing and devising. Remember we are on hand for questions and advice both technical and aesthetic or if you have trouble downloading. Contact us on either:

simon@hearthisspace.com
andrew@hearthisspace.com
brona@hearthisspace.com


Best. HTS

A big thanks to all those who attended the workshop last week. We are all still buzzing with enthusiasm mostly drawn from meeting such a great bunch of people. We are working towards getting the sound files up into Dropbox and some of the sounds on Soundcloud for you all to hear!

Just a quick update we are all ready and set up at Cookes! Lovely venue with great staff. Thanks to all of you that have filled out the form. Good news their will be will be tea and coffee!! Here are a few pics from the set up.

Brona Martin will be a workshop leader and first commissioned artist for the Barrow-in -Furness project. Brona's work  balances the aesthetics of composing with environmental sound while highlighting the sonic layers within the soundscape coupled with a keen sense of environmental concerns. This has led to her works being performed internationally. Brona took some time out to answer a few questions to give you a flavour of why we think she is an exciting  and valuable composer. As a taster you can hear some of her work here

What is your favourite sound?

My favourite sound is rain and thunder. I love being inside and hearing the rain on the window especially if it bounces off a sky-light. I love the rain that comes 'straight down' on a warm day, as if the clouds can no longer hold it in anymore. I love the sound of thunder up close and then listening to it as it slowly moves away. I also love cicadas for their rhythm and density. I went to Brisbane in 2012 to visit my parents and the soundscape there, completely overwhelmed me. So as much as I love exploring local sounds I also love travelling, looking at ordnance survey maps and exploring new places to discover my new favourite sound.

When and how did you come to be involved with field recording?

2011: The second piece that I wrote for my PhD explored the rhythms, tones and all the different sounds associated with a bus journey. When I moved to Manchester first I took the 192 bus from Stockport to Piccadilly. Apart from Oxford road this is one of the busiest bus routes in Manchester and also the most stressful. In Ireland I had my own car and even though it was a 97 Toyota Corolla with a cassette player, I still had control of my listening environment to a certain extent. On the 192 bus there are so many sounds, especially ones that are irritating. For some reason people think that when they are on the bus it is the perfect time to make or take a phone call. This drives me nuts!!! You obviously have to speak louder to be heard over the hum and chatter on the bus. And then all the passengers end up talking louder to compete with the overall noise on the bus. Anyway I wanted to record this environment so I taped DPA microphones to my wrists so that it wasn't obvious. And since then I have always been into field recording. I also did a workshop with Chris Watson and Jez Riley French in November 2012 in Norwich and that was fantastic as I learned some wonderful recording techniques and also about the use of field recording in documentaries. I would recommend this to everyone interested in field recording.

What drew you to sound walks as a compositional tool?

I realised that soundwalking was very important to my practice as it helped me to really listen to the environment. I did a soundwalk with Hildegard Westerkamp in 2012 and that was a wonderful experience. When you engage with the environment aurally you can break down all the layers within the soundscape such as Anthrophony (sounds made by humans) Geophony (natural sound like wind and rain) and Biophony (sounds made by animals and plants). (These categories are taken from Bernie Krause's book The Great Animal Orchestra). These layers are then represented in my work. I particularly love listening to really quiet sounds that are often masked by traffic or are competing with louder and bigger species such as small birds. That is where technology comes in. It allows me to give the quieter sounds a voice by isolating them and boosting their amplitude level.

What role does spatialisation play in your work?

Spatialisation is very important in my work. I started with 5.1 and my last 2 works have been composed in 8-channel. The 8-channel setup allows me to recreate more realistic replications of specific spaces and places while creating an immersive listening environment. The sense of space is very important in my work and 8-channel allows me to create really dense listening environments in contrast with some quiet and delicate moments that are representative of real-world soundscapes.

What were your first impressions of Barrow?

My first impression of Barrow was mixed. I went there knowing nothing about it and as I drove into the town it was like going back in time. There just seemed to be rows of red bricked houses. Then we drove to towards the big BAE (British Aerospace) Halls. I just thought "what are these and what is inside". They are massive buildings that tower over the town. And then I slowly began to learn all about Barrow and the history of the British Aerospace which is so fascinating. We drove to St. James's church as we were going to a concert there that evening to see Lauren Redhead perform. We went inside and there was a 'May Sale' on with lots of women selling bits and bobs. We had a great chat with some of the locals and met more of them at the concert. There is a lot going on in Barrow. I went back and did a soundwalk in the town. When we got to the coast there was a beautiful contrast between the sounds of industry and urban noise with the sounds of nature and the sea. Taking the train to Barrow is even nicer as you get to see all the coastline. It is really beautiful and I am looking forward to going back there.

What sounds struck you?

Vibrations of cars going over the 'high level bridge' where you can see Devonshire Dock, which is where I saw a submarine which had just been launched a few days before. The sounds of the birds down at Rook Scar which is past the Dock Museum, The weird and intriguing hums that come form the BAE building along Cistercian Way.

What inspires you about Barrow?

The people, the sounds and also its' history. The Dock Museum is fantastic, there are beautiful gardens and then there is the sea. I have a huge fascinating with the presence of the BAE and what they build and all the different craftsmen/engineers and programmers involved. I really want to go inside and see what is happening in there. I want to record inside a SUBMARINE!!!!! Obviously this will never happen but maybe there is an idea for a piece there......... I can't access the BAE sound-world within the halls but maybe I could create a virtual soundscape!!! Also I really want to go to Piel Island and record there. There is just so much to do and I love looking at maps of the area and looking at all the places that still have to be explored!!!!

What do you hope to achieve with your commission?

I hope to create a work that represents Barrow in many different ways, that may create a sense of the past, industry and beauty. I am not sure how I will do that but I know that by meeting and talking to the locals this will have an influence on my compositional decisions as will the soundwalk on June 14th. Listening to other people's ideas and opinions is very important to me and I would like to represent this in the work. I find that working with the community is really inspiring and my compositional process has begun to explore aspects of oral history and storytelling. So we will see what happens. I have a broad idea that will become more focused as I gather materials and talk to people in the community and other artists in the area.


https://soundcloud.com/brona-martin

For those of you that want to do some background reading before the workshop, we have posted up some links to online resources that will help to orientate you (or confuse you) but hopefully whet your appetite for what we embarking on. The lists are not conclusive and are a dynamic resource. If there is something useful or relevant you think we should include just email us at info@hearthisspace.com or fill out a contact form 

For - Field Recording Information click HERE

For - Field Recording Technology information click HERE

As a reminder do not forget to fill out the pre-workshop questionnaire click HERE

Also for some interesting information about Barrow-in-Furness (in case you have never been) check out good old Wikipedia

Calling all Participants

To make the workshop run a bit more smoothly please could you answer a few questions. Click HERE

Look forward to seeing you on the 14th!

Only my second visit to the intriguing town of Barrow-in-Furness with its paradoxical industrial and military manufacturing on the edge of the beautiful Lake District. Surrounded by wonderful coastline the town is a mix of terraced housing that was predominantly built before 1919. It has a provincial shopping centre and impressive town hall ( with bell ). It has an out of town retail park complete with supermarkets and fast food restaurants. But it is BAE systems that dominate the skyline with its large factories and monolithic submarine  hangar.

Talking to people there you quickly realise how the factory is a part of everyones lives. It determines peoples working cycles and the rhythm of the town. When new submarines emerge from its metal cocoon an alarm sounds across the town, signalling another cycle of creation. Most of the town are employed there in one form or another, as the whole town hangs on this industry of defence. But what is interesting is that this houses a workforce, highly skilled in crafting not only metal but also fabrication, plastics and other materials, alongside world class engineering and computer technology. Against this backdrop the role of the of the sole artist, artisan as experimentalist or innovator is fundamentally challenged. It is people working together using their talents to build something unimaginably complicated that no one person can fully comprehend. It compels a subtlety of thought to appreciate these acts of creation as great human achievements, in the face of considerable ethical considerations.

More personally, it put me in mind of my late father who was an aircraft fitter for British Aerospace working on Concorde in Bristol. Work would naturally mix with home, as camper vans would  be fitted out with Boeing 747 carpet remnants and industrial grade paint. I wonder how much the lives of the workers at BAE Systems have little bits of debris from the factory? Or skills honed on the shop floor transformed into their customised motorbikes and cars. 

The recordings I made on this trip start to map the obvious, the cars, traffic, the water, but the very familiarity of these sounds is what binds us. The banal is so because it is part of English culture, to those from elsewhere this may seem exotic. It is possibly a challenge for us to find the exotic in these sounds, new resonances with who and where we are. Or perhaps, simply to listen again to the everyday and see what emerges.

For those participating on the workshop these sounds are free to download. If you have time have a listen and take some notes on what you hear, how you hear them and what they trigger for you. I look forward to sharing your experiences when we meet.

We are excited to announce that out first collaboration is with the Octopus Collective from Barrow-in-Furness. "Octopus Collective are a sound art and new music organisation...dedicated to developing new work...[they] offer a ongoing programme of activities including performance education and research project, artistic commissions and a biennial festival"

Discussions between the two organisations began in early 2013. It was immediately apparent that we shared a common interest in putting on site sensitive events. With Octopus Collective's extensive knowledge and skill in curating and organising festivals it was clear that Hear Th↓s Space's could learn much from such an established organisation. Therefore when we received Arts Council funding it we felt it was imperative that Octopus Collective was our first collaboration.


We have initially agreed to put on the sound walk (14/6/14) and accompanying concert in autumn 2014 (date TBC) This is an exciting opportunity to develop work from conception to concert. Taking participants on a sound walk that then becomes a seed to devise work to be performed alongside commissioned and specially curated pieces. This is taking the site sensitive approach to a new level. Its value is in the coming together to create a unique moment for participants and audience alike, that speaks about our shared place.

Other activities are in discussion and we hope that if successful, this will be the start of a  fruitful partnership.We would like to thank Octopus collective especially Andrew Deakin for offering and nurturing this oppurtunity