A series of three short audio stories telling the tale of Venus Smiles by J.G. Ballard from the point of view of the sculpture. 

This was part of my assessment for the Sonic Structures course for the University of Edinburgh's MSc Sound Design.

Read the following paragraphs as you listen to each track:


Generative Synthesis 3: An Autobiography 
(Based on the short story Venus Smiles by J G Ballard)

Episode 1: Early Memories

“I suppose I could say that my first memory was of the artist. I remember feeling very safe back then, it was just her and me. She cared for me, I’m sure, but I don’t think I ever made her happy; she seemed sad all the time and whenever she sang it was always the same tune.”

Episode 2: Abandoned

“When I was still quite young they took me away from the artist. Some men came to the house one morning and smothered me with a cloth that was so heavy I couldn’t move. I remember spending most of that morning travelling with lots of different voices that I had never heard before. 
	It must have been the afternoon when it happened: I had been still for a while and there was just one voice, a man. It must have been him that took off the cloth because he was the first one I noticed. I was scared because I didn’t know where I was, so I called out a little to the artist. Then I saw all the other people, there were hundreds, all looking at me, all angry. I still couldn’t see the artist so I started screaming, but by then she had gone and I never saw her again.”

Episode 3: Unwelcome

“After that disastrous day in the town centre then man with the cloth took me home with him. I hoped it would be like living with the artist but it was not; he left me outside at the bottom of the garden and ignored me. 
I was so lonely, I sang the song the artist used to sing to make them like me but he played different music in the house so I tried singing that instead but it didn’t seem to help. I couldn’t give up hope of being with the artist again so I hatched a plan to grow, to grow so big that I could reach out to her and she could hear me wherever she had gone.”

Episode 4: Murder

“It must have been my growing and crying because the people in the house started to notice me. I remember the woman, she smelt of danger, I could tell she hated me and I think it was her that convinced them to destroy me. They hacked at me with whatever they had, I forced myself to grow against them but after a while everything went black so they must have won.”


Episode 5: The End?

“I awoke, what must have been months later, feeling very peculiar. Everything about me felt different, enormous, no longer were the people around me but I was around them above, below, beside, they are tiny and I stretch from miles. Now I can call out to the artist across the whole world.”


1.Early Memories

2.Abandoned

3.Unwelcome

4.Murder

5.The End

Lots time over my final two years in Edinburgh were spent on the train to and from Kings Cross...This little track is the result of 1 sound designer + too much train travel!

Train-ing

Short sound pitch for a programme designed to monitor and sonify the environmental experiences of house-plants. No I'm not going to explain more than that! There's a demo vid of the final patch made in MaxMSP 5 on YOuTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPWPWK50Cko

AudiOrchid

My first Electroacoustic composition, composed in Edinburgh whilst I studied for my BMus. 

All these sounds are derived from original recordings- there's processing going on but these were the days before I discovered what you could do with a decent synth. 

Travelling stationary

A short sound proposal for a steam-punk clock- this was the first submission for my MSc Sound Design. 



Study in time

The little voices: an electro acoustic composition. We follow the little voices through different Sound-spaces in Edinburgh. 

LenSound