Performer carrying the sound in the space -photo Pier Corona

Listening to extremely far off sourced sounds has kept me engaged over the last few months. Radio waves from Jodrel Bank (UK) and the Parks radio telescope (Australia) have prompted me to think of the un-imaginable distances these sounds travel to our ears. For instance…

Crab Pulsar B0531+21 – 6,500 light-years from Earth
Vela Pulsar PSR B0833-45 – 1,000 light-years from Earth
PRS B0329-45 – approximately 3,500 light-years from outside our Galaxy
Our closest star, the Sun – 8.2 light-minutes from Earth
http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/research/pulsar/Education/Sounds/sounds.html
(18.09.2017)

Audience passing the speakers

Pulsars was performed in the Holywell Music Room at the Audiograft 17 Festival in Oxford. http://www.audiograft.co.uk/programme/thursday/

Holywell Music Room Floor Plan

Twelve performers holding small battery operated speakers were dispersed all around the auditorium, the multiple sound sources being amongst the audience. The performers were seated at first, but moved about in some sections of the piece, accentuating the spatial element of the work.

During the 20minute piece each speaker played had it’s own dedicated track of sound, like an orchestral part. The sounds emanated from the performers MP3 player, attached to the speaker.

Each star had a section of the piece where variations of mainly the same star could be heard. Different rhythmic pulses heard in the work corresponded to the rotations of different Pulsars. In the last section of the piece all the performers gathering together and walked out en masse, through the front door into the street

Better with headphones

One of 12 speakers dispersing the sound

END