Public/Private

Recordings from "Public/Private", an unmanned sound installation which ran for five days between 28/08/07 and 01/09/07 in an empty bank vault in London.

Each evening, an automated drone was set to run uninterrupted for three hours. The event was held in complete darkness.

No instructions were given regarding the size or layout of the space. People where left to freely explore the vaults chambers.

The sounds were generated using the SuperCollider software environment and played through three powered speakers distributed throughout the vault to provide stereo diffusion of the sounds, and to make use of the natural reverberation present in the space.

The software allowed for certain parameters such as pitch/frequency, volume, duration etc. to be suggested by the user. The computer then interpreted these instructions and generated a live, real-time composition without the need for any further user/programmer interaction.

The purpose of the event was to provide a live listening experience which was devoid of any visual information or any human performance element. The sounds (where possible) were set to a volume/pitch which made normal levels of conversation difficult amongst visitors to the installation (for example, tones in the 85-255 hz range were used specifically in an attempt to fall across the general fundamental frequencies of male/female adult speech).

The recordings here are only a short selection from the fifteen hours which were generated over the five day period.

Cheapmachines - Public/Private (AV033DD)

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1.		Cheapmachines - Day 1	3m 34s
2.		Cheapmachines - Day 5	24m 30s
3.		Cheapmachines - Day 4	5m 23s

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