SOUND LINES
BY
BILL FONTANA
A New Sound Sculpture for the Dark Arches in Leeds
Live microphones will listen to the acoustic space in-side of the Leeds Train Station and transmit the sound to loudspeakers below the station, along Dark Neville Street and to the Dark Arches. Both of these spaces are directly below the Leeds Station. The sounds of announcements, trains starting up and stopping, footsteps, random frag-ments of voices will move and echo in the spaces below.Dark Neville Street and the Dark Arches may seem mysterious and forboding to some people, will seem to be much more alive as they are connected to activities in the station above.
A Stereo Mix of the Sound Sculpture
The sounds of trains in the rails will be picked up by very sensitve vibration sensors called accelerometers. These will be magnetically mounted at a couple of positions in the station. When coming from a distance, the wheels of the trains have a delicate mechanical rhythm. As they get close and pass over the sensors, the sound momentarily explodes into a white lightning burst of sound. This will be sent into the Dark Arches and will excite the resonances of the space, mixing in musical ways with the amplified underwater sounds and the natural acoustic sounds of the moving water of the River Aire.
Bill Fontana Interview on the BBC
The Sound Sources:
amplified underwater sounds from the Dark Arhes from Hydrophones
rails from the Leeds Station with accelerometers
Leeds Train Station with acoustic microphones