Ivo Pitts

Soundscapes provide us with an irreplaceable sense of belonging and connection to our environment and to each other, yet, over the last 50 years, the natural world has become progressively quieter as human activity continues to encroach on natural territories.

The audible world consists of three families of sound: the Geophony, where all sounds from a non-biological origin are found, such as the tectonics beneath our feet; the Biophony, filled with the sounds of the biological world, including birds, plants and bacteria; and the Anthrophony consisting solely of the sounds of human activity. 

The short film is composed of a series of layered sound recordings taken from within an area of woodland where I grew up which capture the otherwise silent worlds of soil and plants combined with the all too familiar sounds of bird song and streams – all of which become gradually engulfed by the pervasive sound of a passing commercial aircraft. The imagery to which this soundscape is paired has been created by playing the frequencies  of these recordings through water using Cymatics and filming the resultant patterns created in the water's surface.

Housed inside a pavilion constructed of 95 identical cardboard boxes and 6 sheets of cardboard, the space was built to act as both an anechoic and resonant chamber for sound waves to travel through and between the walls, amplifying the soundscape, whilst also providing an acoustically deadened space inside to provide a higher quality listening experience. Arranged in an asymmetrical checkerboard, the pattern of semi-closed apertures looks to utilise the potential of the cardboard box as both a structural and expressive element. By simply reversing the individual blocks, the structural stability of the space was greatly improved as the wall depth doubled, and the flaps provide bracing for the layer above. Breaking up the uniformity of the individual blocks also helped to disperse the visual mass created by the boxes uniformity to reduce overall volume on the corners and produce a more textural facade.

As a temporary installation it was important that the materials used were: readily available, sustainably produced and easy to deconstruct and recycle either as individual components or a complete system. All materials used have found new life in new work made by students, for friends to move homes or for storage in people's studios.

With special thanks to:

Challenge packaging for supplying the necessary materials for the pavilion.