Argyle Lane 2 (Air Conditioning Unit)
Void Noise
Concerned with empty spaces and sites of disuse within the urban environment, I have been researching and exploring the conceptual, physical and psychological elements that are found within what I call “Nothing Space”1. My exploration has taken me through car spaces, construction sites, vacant lots and alley ways. Through my analysis and interaction with these spaces I have unearthed their cultural, personal and social significance as familiar sites imbued with the uncanny. I have entered and invaded these spaces that are otherwise avoided or ignored by the general populous, and in the process realised a project concerned with the unearthing and capturing of the ephemeral details of the Nothing Space.
Void Noise is a work focussed on a particular urban site I discovered in early July 2012 located in the Rocks, Sydney. Embedded with a tumultuous cultural history, the Rocks is an area where a clashing of lifestyles comes together in discordance; wealthy, poor, young, old, indigenous, non-indigenous. The terraces (old and new) are built side by side with little room for gardens or breathing space. In this urban environment it appears that you are sharing your neighbour’s space regardless of the walls that separate you. The site explored (Argyle Lane) feels like a sewer to the backsides of the homes that crown it. One side of the alley is shear cement and sandstone wall, at around 4-5 meters tall, and the other is lined with the back ends of several closely packed town houses.
In my practice this year I have gathered together the tangible and non-tangible aspects of Argyle Lane (sound and object) and manipulated them in order to express the phenomenal sensations created when one ventures into the Nothing Space. Working with the tactile medium of sound, I recorded two hours of information form Argyle Lane. My installation method of playing the recorded sound through found speakers, new technology and trash gleaned in and around Argyle Lane, results in a distorted audio aesthetic. Ultimately that which is ignored and left dormant, become apparent and dynamic cultural artifacts indicative of time and space. I aim to bring these aspects of the urban void into the gallery space and share them with the viewer. Through capturing and sharing the sounds of Argyle Lane and the objects left to decay, I aim recreate a presence of the site’s spatial residue and create a dissected atmosphere. Though my clashing/marrying of sound and object, Void Noise recreates a type of contemporary “ethnomusicology” descriptive of the urban Nothing Space.