The sounds of the Northumbrian landscape at Cheeseburn Grange, near Stamfordham, recorded from inside of one of Yafeng Qi's huge steel scelptures that were shown in the grounds of Cheeseburn in 2018. The low frequencies are the sound of the wind blowing the sculpture like a giant (5m long!) flute. Into this resonant soundworld drifts the sound of a Northumbrian folk tune, "Bonny at Morn", played on fiddle. The fiddle and field recordings have also been convolution filtered onto one another. This is the soundtrack to a video by Merrie Snell, using footage of the landscape reflected in the distorting surfaces of the sculpture, and so together sound and image evoke the presence of these pieces which are no longer there, having returned to China earlier in 2019. The image is of the sculpture "In Each Phase No. 1", the piece that acts as a giant flute in the soundtrack, and through which pine cones can be heard tumbling at strategic points in the music.

reflected absence

bennetthogg