The Sonic Territories series of projects started with the work developed for the Cementa Festival in 2019, using sound in different forms to explore and define towns and landscapes through sampling and layering sound, and creating verbal and nonverbal narratives to reimagine these spaces and places today and in the future.
Wambuul, 2022 –
Sonic Territories: Wambuul is a multi-staged project using field recordings and audio stories, centred on the Wambuul/ Macquarie River between Wellington and Narromine, including Dubbo. It invites collaboration and participation by other regionally-based artists and the community — as documenters, observers, contributors and storytellers. Each participant takes a thread of the resulting conversation back into their community, in turn further developing the narrative and increasing awareness of the issues impacting the future of the river.
Stage 1 was completed in October 2022 with the release and performance of Wambuul bila. The soundscape composition was included in the ecoartspace online exhibition and publication, The New Geologic Epoch in 2023. The project will continue pending funding.
Galari, 2020 –
Sonic Territories: Galari was developed from a residency at the CORRIDOR project near Cowra, in 2020. This project is ongoing (as funding allows). The first work to have been created from this project is a video and multi-track soundscape titled Galari: Cry me a river (2022). READ MORE ABOUT THE ORIGINS OF THIS WORK IN PROGRESS
Kandos, 2019
Sonic Territories: Kandos was created for a Cementa Festival show curated by Dr Andrew Frost, titled Here and Not Here. The exhibition explores the contemporary condition of the regions through the work of artists who not only live there but whose work focuses on the history and culture of regional places. Through the work of seven artists who live in the Mid West and Central West of NSW, the project looks at how history is under a constant state of erasure, from the changing environment to the slow decay of historic sites and towns, to the slow forgetting of cultures, languages and place.
The walk was hosted by the international audio tour app, izi.TRAVEL (where it is still available by putting Kandos in the search bar). This version is a compilation of the soundtracks.
Cementa Festival is a biennial festival of contemporary art brings together over 60 regional and urban artists for a four-day celebration of Australian contemporary art and the small town of Kandos in Central NSW. In 2019, it was held 21-24 November.
Designed as a site-specific sound tour of 5 locations within the township of Kandos, Sonic Territories: Kandos was recorded on location over three days in the town using field recordings, found and manipulated sounds (including loops and archival material) to create 8-10 track mixes. Designed to be fictional but inspired by historical and contemporary events, the work is a series of sonic narratives of spaces and places of Kandos that have endured much change. The walking tour starts with the very reason Kandos exists, the now silent Cement Works (at the Museum site), and nearby Railway Station, down the main street and through to the local Scout Hall – taking in the multi-purpose sites of Kandos Stores and Angus Memorial Hall (now reinvigorated as the home of the Cementa Festival).
The tracks are industrial, colourful, soulful, set in a landscape of immense, ambient beauty vibrating and echoing from the escarpment to the rolling hills, shadowing each day’s setting western sun.
kvgoldsmithart.com 