2008 - Klanging Banging

Canal Side
18:00 - 06:00

New Soundworks by Emerging Artists Launches on Light Night, 6 - 10pm at Granary Wharf.

On Light Night the Granary Wharf canalside will be brought to life with the launch of the Klanging Banging installations. Follow the route marked by Klanging balloons starting at City Square or PSL to hear all the sound pieces, joining the artists and friends aboard the Kirkstall Flyboat for drinks, courtesy of Leeds Brewery, and live acoustic performances.

Continue your journey following the balloons down to Water Lane to discover events at the Round Foundry and Pavilion.

To experience all four works, begin your journey on Swinegate and head for the canal, or make your way from PSL [Project Space Leeds] at Whitehall Watefront, crossing the footbridge and following the canal back to the city centre.  Keep your eyes and ears open and listen out for unusual sound in unexpected places.

'Only in recent times the urban soundscape has become an issue with its overwhelming amount of information but also its deafening noise level that is numbing people's hearing sensitivities.  To create a quality of listening within this relatively young acoustic phenomena, an artistic intervention to reshape this sound world is necessary.'

Hans Peter Kuhn, Neville Street Artist

Klanging Banging represents four new sonic interventions to the south of Leeds City Centre.  Based around Neville Street and the developing Granary Wharf area, these sound works by five emergent local artists take personal narratives and the found sound of urban spaces to create installations that resonate between the past, present and future of their sites.  Each piece was created as a response to this area of the city and its unique architectural landscape.

Andrea Fitzpatrick

Dislocated Voices

Swinegate and Bishopsgate

Dilsocated Voices places the audience in an alternative acoustic environment of overlapping and entangled narratives.  Testimonies of journeys experienced have been cut and spliced, and the resulting sound can be heard by walking between successsive points with a protable radio.  While audience members are isolated by the use of headphones, they are connected to a wider technological network.  This sonic interruption actively promotes an increased awareness of the physical environment.  To hear Dislocated Voices, collect a radio reciever from PSL, Leeds Art Gallery or Best-One Newsagents on Bishopsgate, near the train station.  You can also listen by tuning your mobile or mp3 player radio to 100fm.  The piece can be heard at www.myspace.com/nevillestreetproject.

Fitzpatrick graduated from the Edinburgh College of Art in 2002, completing an MA in Fine Art at the University of Leeds in 2008.  She was a member of the Enso Live Art Initiative (www.ensart.com) between 2004 and 2007.  Bursary award winner: University of Leeds.

Tom Cookson

Urban Birdsong

KPMG, Victoria Bridge

Urban Birdsong comments on how wildlife in urban environments competes, and in some cases, appropriates, elements of noise pollution to make its songs and mating calls heard.  Through the manipulation of found sounds, from bus brakes to passing traffic noise, Cookson creates a public installation that subtly emanates from bird boxes positioned in the branches of a canalside tree, imitating the twittering and chirping of birdsong.

Cookson comes from a fine art background and works in a range of media, including painting and photography, video and sound installation.  Bursary award winner: Leeds College of Art and Design.

Stuart Childs and Chris Martin

Junction

Granary Wharf

Junction is a nulti-channel site specific installation stretching along the canalside at Granary Wharf.  It takes as its source the industrial and technological sounds of the area's history, from its nineteenth century manufacturing past to today's media-based industries.  Using field recordings, Junction maps the changes in the locality's distinctive acoustic landscape.

Childs and Martin are Creative Music and Sound Technology graduates, currently collaborating on creative sound projects under the name Outpost (www.outpost-north.co.uk).  Bursary award winners: Leeds Metropolitan University.

Jonathan McLeod

Metamorphosing

Railway bridge, canal path

Metamorphosing explores the environmental infrastructure of the canal path, to create a constantly changing sound sculpture.  Set beneath a railway bridge, the installation uses multiple loudspeakers to capture different qualities of the site's acoustics.  This sonic work is created by overlapping a number of unsynchronised loops, incorporating found sound and more abstract audio, which in turn interact with their surroundings.

McLeod is a sonic artist, sound designer and composer.  Bursary award dinner: Leeds College of Music.

-------------------

Klanging Banging is part of the associated cultural programme for the £4.6 million investment to transform Neville Street, beneath Leeds Train Station, into a major gateway for the city.  Since 2005, the Berlin-based artist Hans Peter Kuhn has been working with Bauman Lyons Architects, Arup Acoustics, MAAP and Leeds City Council to create an innovative design which uses light and sound features toenhance the environment of Neville Street.  The design will, in particular, lift and soften the noise of the cars and trains through sound and light features.

This scheme sees the launch of 'Light' Neville Street in January 2009 as a celebration of design quality for the city's public spaces.  Klanging Banging uses the progressive sound and light design planned for Neville Street as a catalyst for the artists to engage with city redevelopment, urban design and their creative relation to space through sound.

The installations are teh result of a nine month bursary scheme, intiated by Sue Ball of MAAP (Media and Arts Partnership), which brought together the University of Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds College of Music and Leeds College of Art and Design, in collaboration with Leeds City Council.  all technical consultation and installation of the artists's work was provided by Lumen.

A roundtable discussion of the project with the artists will be hosted at teh Cross Keys pub, Water Lane, LS11 5WD, on Tuesday 14th October, 6 - 8pm (talk begins at 6.30pm).

With thanks to KPMG, Network Rail, Mr & Mrs Ali Mercan, PSL, Leeds Art Gallery and Leeds Brewery.  Also to Phil Slocombe at Lumen, Stephen Felmingham, Stephen Kilpatrick, Dale Perkins, Vanalyne Green and the four HE institutions for their invaluable support throughout the project.

A special thanks to Isis Waterside Regeneration and the Granry Wharf team for their generous support and co-operation.

www.holbeckurbanvillage.co.uk/nevillestreet