Sound Artist: Janet Cardiff

Two projects by sound artist Janet Cardiff have given me inspiration into the medium and the method of recording the sounds. The first is called "Forty-Part Motet"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6nCFy_81n8

The following article gives a great description of the piece,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120601697.html

How can I apply the ideas of the decay of sound to the mundane sound that I will record? In Forty- Part Motet, forty different sounds are recorded from the symphony in order to produce the grand sound. In the Mundane, is there enough layers to successfully analyze the individual sound that comprises the whole.

The second piece by Janet cardiff is called "Winter of Sound."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDPcUmeAuI8

In this piece, Janet Cardiff records the sounds of the street as she walks. She uses two kinds of microphones in order to capture all of the possible sounds. She uses contact mics (piezo mics) to capture the sounds of machines and vibrations from cars and buses as they pass by amongst other vibrations. The piece is interesting because she overlaps the sounds that she records and amplifies them. The sounds that we are used to hearing quietly are brought to the front and are prominent in the recordings. This alone creates a phenomenological experience because it reverses the hierarchy of the sounds. We hear the clicks and vibrations which are normally registers as a hum in the background and the passing of cars and and people somehow fade into the background.