VOICE

VOICE was a public art project co-designed by Adam Hunt and myself as Transmit Receive in 2012. We took a therapeutic approach to capturing peoples personal stories and turned them into a series of performance art projects in Edinburgh, UK and Melbourne, AUS. Along with a special edition developed for ABC Radio National podcast Long Story Short. Here is a little story of how it all came together. 

Technical Specifications

• Duration: 40 minutes
• Capacity: 2-30 audience members per show
• Technical Requirements: 12-channel sound system, controlled lighting environment, multiple room setup
• Staff: Team of specialised performers and facilitators

Idea Conception

DEVELOPMENT – LATE 2012

I had recently returned from a Joanna Macy “The Work That Reconnects Retreat” and Adam had setup his Sound Design studio, Shotgun Sound, in an old Undertakers Morge. It sounds inhospitable. I’d say it was a unique experience. All the same we were keen to collaborate on a project together after making a personal commitment to abstain from watching adult content. 

Adam shared that Soundscaping Festival in Edinburgh were seeking submissions for a project at ARC23:

Where they wanted narrative driven works to utilise 8 speakers that the audience could move around the space to complete the works.

Our idea basically narrowed down to:

1. Setup a therapeutic like environment and take people on a journey with the final destination being, “Share a story that is deep and intimate to you only using sound and textural utterances. No ‘words’.”
2. Take those recordings and make a series of sound collages to be broadcast into the space.

Here is the submission in full:

Recording + Editing

DEVELOPMENT – LATE 2012

We worked with about 10 individuals ranging from Singers to Doctors of Neuroscience and helped build a journey for them to travel through at Adam’s studio Shotgun Studio. 

CD: Conditions Designer / Facilitator - Max
AD: Audio Designer
     role: Time keeper and bad cop - Adam
VA: Vocal Artist 

We worked by gaining informed consent from the participants by outlining the whole intent and how we work, and then went about attempting to induce a state of emotional spontaneity through a series of games/task to build and release pressure. 

The editing process was extensive mainly driven by Adam on the technical side with me providing reflections and ideas as it progressed.

Find extra details on how we worked with people here:

Edinburgh – Soundscaping

SHOWING – EARLY 2013

The show went very well Soundscaping Festival that we decided to consider showing the work in Melbourne. 

Melbourne – Goodtime Studio

SHOWING – MID 2013

We decided to show the work in Melbourne for a two week showing in mid 2013. The intention was to be in more fine control of the conditions of the space, and in the same way we worked with the Voice Artists we wanted to design the space for the audience to arrive into. Setting up many stages for thresholds. This involved a team of six performance artists who so delicately held the audience from the entrance to exit. Goodtimes was an arts space underground with a labyrinth of pipes, cement and doors. 

An informed consent model was used with the listening audience and the crew of performance artists were each given specific directives under the flavour of pressure release. For example we had a ‘mandatory’ cloaking experience with directives of:

Script:
“We will be taking your items and looking after them for you, removing any burden that may have.

Can I have you number please? I will be cloaking your items today, I’ll be right here when the show is finished. Just give me the number back.” 

Over two showings we have 60 audience members come through and we received great feedback: 

• “Blind-folded, my sense of hearing reached out further that normal, the pinpoint accuracy of the spatial dimension achieved a stunning corporeality that was breathtaking to behold. One of the best sound pieces i’ve ever experienced. Would hear again.” Bosco Ho
• “Intense. Voice was an interesting audio installation that created a mental space to explore lucidly and almost felt like hallucinating at points. Inviting people in to a space without the pre-conceived notion of the space they were in was a big trust exercise but also enhanced the audio senses very successfully.” Betty Musgrove

Credits

Created by Transmit Receive:

• Max Milne: Installation and Environmental Design
• Adam Hunt: Sound Composition and Spatial Audio Design

Special thanks to all the voice artists who shared their stories and helped shape this work.

VOICE was an exploration of how shared vulnerability could create profound connections through the simple act of listening.