Durational Situation / Umeälven / Birrarung is a site based audio walk that focuses on the deep time and anthropogenic relations between the rivers Umeälven and Birrarung. Situated in Umeå, the audio walk starts from Galleri Verkligheten and takes the audience on a guided walk through listening to the river systems across time.

The narrator on the audio walk is speaking from the position of Birrarunga/Naarm/Melbourne in Australia and relates the river system of Birrarung (Yarra River) and its flow into Nairm (Port Philip Bay) to the Umeälven river and its flow into the Gulf of Bothnia. The audience acts as performer as they are taken on a journey across time and place between the two river systems; the Umeälven river and its counterpoint across the other side of the world, Birrarung. The counterpoint of the two rivers, highlight the interrelated experiences of geomorphological transformation, impacts of colonisation, and environmental changes across deep time to now, while the walk itself forms a living map that we can carry forward with us. 

This project acknowledges the Wurundjeri and Sami people as the traditional custodians of the land and waterways in which this project and recordings were made and pays respect to Kulin Nations and Sami Elders past and present. 

This project was made in conjunction with Re-Think festivalen, Norrlandsoperan, Galleri Verkligheten, and supported by Iaspis. Thank you to Helena Wikström, Sebastian Adolfsson and the Tributary Project (Ying-Lann Dan, Benjamin Woods, and Saskia Schut) who contributed to the recordings.

https://norrlandsoperan.se/forestallning/re-think-festivalen/

Durational Situation / Umeälven  / Birrarung

microphone, loudspeaker, feedback, various effects pedals, e-bow, objects, and field recording
2021

io / accelerate towards / positive feedback (homotopy to)

Durational Situation / Umeälven / 3022
Geoff Robinson

Durational Situation / Umeälven / 3022  is the sequel to a two part site based audio walk that focuses on the deep time and anthropogenic relations of the Umeälven river. Situated in Umeå, the audio walk picks up from where it left off at Bildmuseet and takes the audience on a guided walk through listening to river systems across time.  

Part one of the audio walk, Durational Situation / Umeälven / Birrarung (as a part of Re-Think festivalen 2021), was a comparative walk between the rivers Umeälven in Sweden and Birrarung in Australia. The walk focussed on the geomorphological and colonial impacts of the two river systems on opposite sides of the world.  

Part two moves forward into the future, a speculative projection focussing on the ongoing transformations of the interglacial period, human impacted environmental change, and the potential for the Umeälven to reclaim its ecology and flow.

I acknowledge this audio walk takes place on Sami land and waters. I pay respects to all Sami people past, present and future.

Durational Situation / Umeälven / 3022

Durational Situation / Monmar takes audiences on a guided walk through listening to the ecology, waters, and transformations of Monmar across time. The walk focuses on the deep time and anthropogenic relations of the peninsula; traversing a remnant Moonah tree woodland valley from the bay side and moving through the recent histories and interventions to the ocean side. 

During the walk, audiences are guided across durations and place and experience recorded sounds from a micro and macro perspective throughout the peninsula region. The sounds and narration allude to moments in time, juxtaposing and complicating histories, and untangling contemporary narratives through listening and embodied experience.

This project is a part of Front Beach Back Beach event https://fbbb.com.au

I acknowledge the Bunurong and Boon Wurrung people as the traditional custodians of the land and waterways in which this project was made and pay respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging.

Location
Monmar, Point Nepean National Park. Start walk at Cheviot Hill bus stop.

Performers
Southern Peninsula Concert Band;
Allan Fenney (euphonium)
Juliette Theobald (french horn)
Paul Donnelly (trombone)
Tom Fagan (tuba)

Benjamin Woods (glass flutes, sculptural objects)

Caroline Connors (voice, objects)

Flora Carbo (saxophone)

Durational Situation / Monmar

room overlay/5 weeks /thursdays 6-7pm/accumulation
Geoff Robinson

West Space, 28 May - 2nd July 2015

5 channel sound and loudspeakers, pine and acrylic. 
Performers: Aviva Endean, Alexander Garsden, Alice Hui-Sheng Chang, Michael McNab & Benjamin Woods
Sound recording and mix: Martin Kay

room overlay/5 weeks /thursdays 6-7pm/accumulation takes sound recordings made over four indoor public sites in Melbourne and sequentially overlays them onto Gallery 1, the Front and Back Space of West Space over the duration of the exhibition.

The recordings are performed in collaboration with four musicians. Using spatial markers(coloured wooden blocks), Geoff Robinson traces and highlights the architecture of the sites emphasising its form and material texture through the placement and contact/sounding of the spatial markers whilst each musician uses their instrument to sound out the acoustics of the room.

The overlay onto West Space consists of the playback of the recordings of each site and the re-iterating of the collaborative performance of marking and sounding out the gallery. Each site will be overlaid one week at a time on Thursdays between 6-7pm. As each speakers remain playing the site recordings the spatial markers will accumulate over the 5 weeks creating a spatial diagram of the performances in relation to the architecture of West Space.




room overlay/Southern Lawn Carpark University of Melbourne/Benjamin Woods

Geoff Robinson is a Melbourne-based artist working on Wurundjeri country. Robinson creates event-based artworks that utilise the temporal qualities of sound and performance and the spatial conditions of physical sites to unravel the durational layers of place. Recent projects include: Tributary Project (2020-2021), with Ying-Lan Dann, Ben Woods & Saskia Schut, Bus Projects, Melbourne; Durational Situation / Vartiovuori (2019-2020), Titanik gallery, Turku; Itinerant Sound (2015-2019), multiple sites across Australia; Itinerant Object / Propositions for Change (2016), Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne; Room Overlay / 5 weeks / Thursdays 6-7pm / Accumulation (2015), West Space, Melbourne; 15 locations / 15 minutes / 15 days (2014), Federation Square, Melbourne; Site Overlay / Acoustic Survey (2013), across three public sites in Melbourne. Robinson has held residencies and exhibited at Titanik gallery, Turku; Helsinki International Artist Programme; MoKS, Estonia; and Seoul Art Space. He was awarded the Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture 2014 and completed the PhD project Durational Situation at MADA, Monash University, Melbourne, 2018.
 
www.geoffrobinsonprojects.com

Geoff Robinson

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