by javier on Thu Jun 07, 2007 8:08 am
I took a trip to Naoshima during the Standard 2 exhibition specifically to hear the Sylvian piece.
What a beautiful location - a small island with a couple of villages, and the artworks scattered in various locations. Shuttle buses were running regularly all over the island but I instead opted to hire a bicycle and cycle for a few days. One could thus travel anywhere anytime, and a brisk circuit of the island could be made in less than an hour. However the island invites slow and contemplative exploration rather than velocity.
Some wonderful artwork - the James Turrell and Tatsuo Miyajima installations were powerful indeed. But I digress.
The Sylvian work is by far and away the most "ambient" track I've ever heard by him, a soundscape of fragments rather than a piece of music. Various sounds advance and recede between long silences or the faint sound of wind. Wooden shutters closing, distant seagulls, metallic scrapings, creaking boards, boat horns, birdsong and tinkling bells, shuffling sounds, crows, and haunting voices reminiscent of Akira Rabelais' "Spellewauerynsherde"....
The track was designed to be listened to on earphones while walking around the island.
To put it bluntly, I found the experience staggering. The piece, being constructed to a great extent of many sounds recorded on the island, blended perfectly with the ambient sounds surrounding me as I walked and cycled - I would hear a wooden impact to my left and turn to see a local Naoshima resident sliding shut an old door. Minutes later I'd hear a similar sound and turn round only to realise it had come from the iPod....seagulls would drift in and out, sometimes real gulls flying overhead, at other times part of the soundscape on the earphones. I would hear strange creaking noises as I passed through a forest filled with birdsong and then later recognise it as the creaking of wires and ropes on moored boats as I cycled along the waterfront. It was a wonderfully disorienting and immersive experience....an intertwining of memory with the present, of reality with the not-yet-experienced ....and never before in living memory have I felt so incredibly aware of every small detail of my immediate environment.
A most enriching journey. Inspiring and thought-provoking.
I can also say this - listening to it as a standalone recording captures none of the power of that experience. The work was most definitely a site-specific piece of art. Heard elsewhere it would be a completely different beast, perhaps interesting as an example of the art of soundscaping, but detached from its true essence. Akin to observing an animal in a zoo rather than in its natural environment.
Blessings to all.