CURRENT FEASIBILITY STUDY
During Autumn 2010, I was invited to take part in an exhibition and speak at a symposium — ExLab — in Bridport, Dorset. The symposium was the initial part of a process to bring together artists, designers and scientists to devise new artworks to be sited within the Jurassic coast, timed to coincide with the 2012 Olympics.
The Jurassic Coast is famous for its fossils – revealed as its structure is constantly in a state of flux — very gradually moving, splitting and falling into the sea. GRID takes this state of flux as its starting point and, similar to TIMELINE, uses the perpetual striking of cosmic rays as an audible constant, against which are compared the mysterious, almost imperceptible sounds produced by the deep movement of the earth. Invisible activity from the sky and ground, is revealed ‘live’ as it simultaneously develops and changes.
GRID has at its centre, a circular sound chamber – of similar size to a bandstand — in which viewers can sit. The small building is set in a quiet coastal location, within a matrix or grid-markers placed in the ground. Beneath each marker is a highly sensitive outdoor-use contact microphone and at the four corners of the grid perimeter are buried four Geiger-counters.
The resulting staccato sounds from the cosmic ray-triggered Geiger-counters and the mysterious, subtle, amplified sounds of movement produced underground through the contact microphones are relayed back to the sound chamber via speakers in its circular interior wall. This ‘surround-sound’ playback system will produce a continually-changing texture of sounds, which alter in pitch and intensity throughout the day, conceptually linking the universe to a particular location on earth, with the listener placed at the heart of the process.
Charlie Hooker 2011
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