Sharon Gal spoke about the importance of architecture and the effects it can have on your performance. Space is a crucial part of making recordings and performances. She spoke about using space as a friend and incorporating your surroundings into your performance. This reminded me of a great example of work that spoke to me when using spaciality in a unique way.
After watching Sky’s critically acclaimed series ‘Chernobyl’ I was so deeply moved by Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score and sounds played throughout. As I later researched her process I began to r3spect what I was hearing on another level. The sound was built on a series of field recordings captured at a power plant in Lithuania where the series was filmed. In an interview, Hildur said “The radiation was going to be connected to the space with actual sounds and the human side, which was the reason for all of this happening in the first place, [evoked] human error, loss, and grief. As I read the script, these feelings were raw to me. And the best way for me to access these emotions personally was to use my voice for the choir parts.”
To me, it amazes me how despite nuclear energy physically being so silent when in the air the sounds she produced in the power plant held such a dark story towards the nuclear forces that loomed within Chornobyl and Russia at the time.
Despite the fact I have made field recordings in the past and incorporated them into a script I hope to copy Hildur’s technique and instead of just recording what’s around me; take my sounds to produce there and use the space/ acoustics to my true advantage.