About the artist
Robin Parmar is an intermedia artist whose practice incorporates electroacoustics, radiophonics, field recording, and experimental film. Works have appeared in Ireland, England, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Slovenia, Canada, and the USA. In 2014 Gruenrekorder released his fifth album "...between...", a collaboration with David Colohan. Currently he is researching the aural phenomenology of place for a doctorate at De Montfort University, Leicester.
About the project
I am intrigued by the role that sound plays in our perception of environments, particularly in how we constitute "place". My model of investigation is built around "the sounding", a concept which transforms "sound" from noun to verb, in order to emphasise the active process by which we create a place anew, each and every time it is encountered.
I am grateful to have been awarded a residency in order to develop "In that place, the air was very different", a sound installation that grows with each place I visit.
My residency will explore the culture, geography, and biome of São Miguel. Distinctive field recordings will be compiled into a sound pool, joining those from previous soundings (in Ireland, Spain, and Slovenia). This accumulation of sonic memories represents my engagement with place as a generative field, always in the process of being formed.
The installation presents these pools as overlapping sonic zones. Visitors are invited to trace their own paths, creating a listening experience responsive to their own attention. "In that place, the air was very different" considers our embedded situation in a matrix of connections and flows.
Schedule
I will be resident in Ribeira Grande starting 19 March. The installation is hosted by Arquipélago contemporary arts centre.
From 7-9 April the conference Invisible Places: Sound, Urbanism and Sense of Place will take place at the University of the Açores, Ponta Delgada. I will be presenting a paper that explores some of the ideas behind my work.
Finally, I will complete my documentation and depart the Azores on 12 April.
