Unnecessary Annoying Soundscapes

Sanitary Soundscapes

Annoying sound of the day, Monday, 22nd November 2021. Binaural recording.

London Bridge Escalator

Hand Dryer Noise in corridor to Cambridge Services' WCs (October 2021)

98 voices emulating/mimicking/impersonating/singing/sounding Denmark’s Dan Dryer, Turbo Design model. 

A participative and creative approach that contributes to an ongoing study into the noise effects of ultra-fast hand dryers on users with sensitive hearing and special auditory needs, such as children, older people, tinnitus and hyperacusis sufferers. Hearing models used in design and legislation are predicated on the notion of a healthy person aged between 18 to 25 years. What about the hearing of an 8 year old child on the autistic spectrum or a partially sighted hearing aid user in their 70s? In ayre #2[Dan Dryer] you can hear a wide range of voices from a 2 year old child to older people in their 80s. In such projects Drever seeks for a greater consciousness of aural diversity, a departure from our default understanding of an idealised, perfect hearing, a model of hearing that he calls the auraltypical. 

Thanks to Radar, Godsbanen and Aarhus University.  And special thanks to all those who contributed their voices including Class 1.B at Rosenvangsskolen, Aarhus and St Barnabas Choir, Dulwich, London.

https://vimeo.com/171068424

sanitary tones: ayre #2[Dan Dryer] - documentation

The piece is finished once all the ropes have been stored.

I made multiple recordings of this performance event every Sunday afternoon between swimming training and water polo, each with its own unique style. Then one week the same procedure of winding up the lanes was carried out but with no sonic accompaniment – someone had oiled the storage reel.

Score for Swimming Pool Lane Ropes Storage Reel

Litany of the Hand Dryers [spoken]

Otohime by TOTO

Wednesday morning (starting from c. 6.15am) springtime residential soundscape from the suburbs of South London during the first lockdown. The recording presents the entire refuse collection sequence from the point of audition of my bedroom. The bin lorry turns into the top of the street, gradually moves down the street passing by my bedroom window where the microphones are positioned, and steadily disappears from within earshot. The bin lorry refuse mechanism generates a noise more in place in Jurassic Park, which a touch of WD-40 could eliminate. Remarkably, I would normally sleep through this, but during the first lockdown the soundscape got “louder” despite the usual incessant drone of traffic noise dropping away.

Winner of the Worst Sound: A sound that should never have been made or that should have been designed better, Sound of the Year Awards 2020. https://www.soundoftheyearawards.com/ 

​

covid crepusculars #1

From the first Aural Diversity Concert, Old Barn, Kelston Roundhill on July 6th 2019.

A collaboration with Andrew Hugill, where all the performers and composers are aurally diverse and the performance setting and conventions are open to an aurally diverse audience. 

For Andrew Hugill's Ways of Listening and Conventions for aurally diverse concerts see: http://auraldiversity.org/concerts.html

In preparation for the performance, individually the six performers were asked to phonate (i.e. reproduce with their voices as best they can the sound that they perceive via auditory perception) the sonic emission of 12 different models from the leading brands of commercial hand dryers in the UK. Drever made the hand dryer recordings in BRE's anechoic chamber in a pervious project. As well as doing their best to mimic the sounds with their voices, the performers were also given instructions to valorise specific qualities of the sounds that they appreciated, proposing new sound design. 

In performance with radio mics,  they reproduced the task, whilst also listening and copying the other performers’ phonations, and moved slowly around the performance venue and audience. 

Putting into play, whilst questioning, Alfred Tomatis’ concept of the audio-phonation loop (1963), their particular hearing, and each other’s particular hearing, became central and contingent on their phonating. 

The aims was to create the conditions for a participatory, aurally inclusive process that places the performers’ hearing at the centre of the process and authorship and performance space is decentred.

NB: The hand dryer recordings have been added to the beginning of this recording, but in the performance only the performers' phonations were audible.

Performers: Simon Allen, John Drever, Andrew Hugill, Ruth Mallalieu, Matthew Spring, Anya Ustaszewski

Sanitary Tones: ayre #3 [Kelston]

The Litany of the Hand Dryers [sung] - excerpt

Operating at the intersection of acoustics, audiology, urban design, sound art, soundscape studies, and experimental music, Drever’s practice represents an ongoing inquiry into the perception, design and practice of everyday environmental sound. He has a special interest in soundscape methods, in particular field recording and soundwalking. Resulting from the findings of his study on the noise impact of high-speed hand dryers, Drever has been developing the concept of auraldiversity, attempting to reconceptualize hearing in sound practice that diverges from a paradigm predicated on a singular, idealized, symmetrical model of hearing (i.e. the auraltypical) that has predominated.

Drever is Professor of Acoustic Ecology and Sound Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he co-leads the Unit for Sound Practice Research (SPR).

In 1998 he co-founded and chaired the UK and Ireland Soundscape Community (a regional affiliate of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology) for whom he chaired Sound Practice: the 1st UKISC Conference on sound, culture and environments in 2001 at Dartington College of Arts.

Drever is an avid collaborator and has devised work in many different configurations and contexts. Commissions range from the Groupe de Recherches Musicales, France (1999), WDR Studio Akustische Kunst, Germany (2011), Shiga National Museum, Japan (2012). As a core member of arts collective Blind Ditch, he is currently working on the Common Line project (https://thecommonline.uk/), Britain’s first linear forest.

Hand Dryer Noise in corridor to Cambridge Services' WCs (October 2021)

John Levack Drever