Justin Bennett
"magnetic city". CD Spore
The Netherlands
Very lovely. The
sound quality is sharp, yet not scientific. It seems to be processed,
but does not leave its context. Surprisingly void of humans, this
work concentrates on the audio "magnetics" of Barcelona.
For a city as packed with people and continuous activity as this
Catalan capital, a strange statement emerges about the nature of
a "city".
The "city"
is an organic concept where the natural geography of a place, conscious
design of urban planners, and the chaotic ebb and flow of population
and politics through time add up to the greater concept of a place
in such motion as "Barcelona".
Bennett uses his
intuition to follow twisting currants of magnetism which offer audio
evidence of their existence. I imagine these magnetic spots have
historical resonance: as certain activities carry through time,
for example a marketplace, this leaves permanent, if malleable,
marks on that geography.
The high echoing
sound of Mediterranean birds prick holes in the flowing fabric of
the living city. Due to the length and stillness of the overall
composition, I do not like to listen to it with the intensity of
musique concrete, nor do I like to leave it in the background like
cafe jazz. Instead, it puts the sound of a room through a color
filter, as though I were taking in the sun on a rooftop of the Medieval
quarter, drifting in and out of sleep.
The original multitrack
piece was presented in The Netherlands, and in Barcelona as an installation.
I question the success of this piece as an installation. It is long,
over 40 minutes, and has very little activity. A person sitting
there would presumably have much of their senses numbed by the museum
setting, and thus be forced to focus on the piece. It is precisely
this intense focus that defeats the work: if the intention is a
concept as vague yet intriguing as "magnetics" of a city,
then the listener must be allowed to be pulled by the work intuitively
-- almost like meditation. People do not focus their attention on
city sounds when they are in the city, instead they hear with unfocused
attention: when sound changes dramatically, they pick up their ears,
when the sound is continuous, they allow themselves to carry on
with their activity.
I think the CD
version therefore is a better way to present the work. People all
over the world can allow a small amount of the subconscious magic
of Barcelona into their homes, to experience the sound like the
people living there do: as the never-ending fabric of their lives.