Shadow Rounds
An orchestration of voices from 2,000 years of a London neighbourhood
Shadow Rounds is a site specific sound installation created for the Charnel House archaeological observation window, Bishops Square, Spitalfields, London,
commissioned by Spitalfields Development Group, curated by Dixon Russell Art Management and supported by the Arts Council England.
The installation runs from September 21 2007 – June 20 2008
introduction
The rhythm of the imagining community resembles a very slow dance…… But how can a symphony be created from the buzz of voices? … how can we progress from the murmur of the crowd to a chorus? … this requires time: …everything occurs within the obscure, invisible folds of the collective itself: the melodic line, the emotional tonality, the hidden intervals, the correspondences, the continuity that it weaves within the hearts of the individuals who compose it.
Pierre Lévy, Collective Intelligence
Exploring the voice of Spitalfields, Shadow Rounds, located on the glass wall of the Charnel House, is an audio portrait based on language transformations over the past 2,000 years. Tracing specific texts and vocalisations from the vicinity the work maps the way the local place and language has been enriched by a steady influx of differing vocal rhythms and structures, and reflects on the connection between voice and content.
Layers of language over the centuries seep through to the contemporary fabric, adding to a collective intelligence, so the work aims to develop a notion of non-linear time rather than a simple progression of singular historical events. The source texts include: Celtic, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Medieval and Elizabethan English, French, Yiddish, Bengali, and contemporary English.
Transforming the glass wall into a resonating field of voices and sounds, Shadow Rounds uses the latest innovations in piezo technology, pioneered by FeONIC plc. The window plane becomes a sounding object attracting and yet distancing the visitor, reflecting the nature of language itself.
The Charnel House glass wall is also integral to the installation in another, more direct way. Local residents have long feared the City moving across the ‘glass wall’ divide which originally saw the area outside Bishopsgate as a ‘Liberty’ – beyond the jurisdiction of the city – a place to practice free thought, trade and beliefs. The voice of Spitalfields speaks of multiplicity through time. As the city encroaches on this land there is necessarily assimilation or loss, or both.
Shadow Rounds takes place at different times of the day transforming the sound (as a form of mixes) over the weeks of the nine month performance period. Digitally transformed details of vocal sounds establish percussive and melodic material and these sounds are related back to their originating texts, creating a set of aural traits, or sound worlds. These individual sound worlds are, in turn, brought together at nightfall into a larger mix. (See the Introduction to Texts for further details.)
Shadow Rounds is conceived as a meditative work. The piece creates a time capsule within the Charnel House observational space slowing down the visitor’s gaze and deepening his/her engagement with the archaeological remains and its relationship to the surrounding locale. The work is an investigation into an audio-archeology and explores music’s possible origin in speech and vocal gesture, and, more specifically, where it is located in our everyday lives beyond the confines of song and instrument.
