LCC MA Sound Arts and the Swiss Church London are collaborating to stage the first of what will be an annual sound art exhibition of current students from the MA Sound Arts course. This July features work by three students:

Caving

Benjamin Harrison
Elliot Buchanan
Martyn Riley

The Swiss Church, 79 Endell St, London
18th – 23rd July 2023
Private View – 20th July 2023 (6-9pm)

Caving is an investigation into archaeoacoustic histories of resonance and how the relationship between sound and space can allow access to the divine. The sound installation is a negotiation of the acoustic properties of The Swiss Church and its resonant frequencies to create complex harmonies and resonant entanglements.

In the aural consciousness of our ancestors, large resonant spaces were imbued with an unknowable yet undeniable meaning; spiritual and divine in its essence. Humans would have encountered these experiences initially at natural sites such as caves or valleys, and this lineage of resonance and spiritual experiences can be traced to sacred spaces like The Swiss Church.

Mirroring the encounters of early humans as they sought to understand the causal meaning of the unknowable, the work elicits transgenerational experiences of resonance through hidden sounds. Drawing on archaeoacoustic research, the installation references the figure of the echea. Historically, echea, or acoustic vases, were installed within sacred spaces and amphitheatres to alter the acoustics. The piece posits the vases as material allegory, alluding to this ancient technique.

The sonic material of the work is informed by acoustic measurements of the space to locate The Swiss Church’s unique resonant frequencies, producing a dialogical and mutually affective soundspace.

Benjamin Harrison
@benjaminfdh / benjaminharrisonsound.com
Benjamin’s work inquires into the spatiotemporal possibilities of sound through expanded listenings, locational histories & creative reconstruction of placioexperiential phenomena.

Elliot Buchanan
@_elliotbuchanan / elliotbuchanan.com
Elliot Buchanan investigates interrealationality and the emergence of plural knowledges through the lens of a sonic metaphysics.

Martyn Riley
@martyn_riley_sound / martynriley.co.uk
Martyn specialises in sonic memories, by employing experimental extended recording techniques, manipulating listeners’ perceptions relating to their spatial environment.

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