Imaginary garden (over Wat Pho) [Hexany 1-3-7-9]

Oct 08, 2022, 08:21 AM

"A technique I frequently employ is to allow a field recording itself to provide the structure of a composition in a very direct way: the sounds play in the background and aural events within the sound directly trigger musical motifs, hence the title “…(Over Wat Pho)”.

"In this instance the composition begins with simple motifs in a highly consonant tuning system being initiated by the sounds of birdsong, speech and footsteps from the temple. As the piece progresses, more artificial, processed derivations of those tones begin to appear (a simple and obvious metaphor for the intrusion of technology in our environment). Then, the ‘pure’ generated environment disappears, leaving only the artefacts.

"It ends with the slow erasure of these products leaving only the sounds of Wat Pho, albeit now itself permanently altered; the initial optimism of the attempted return to a more natural state affected by what has come before."

Wat Pho reimagined by Phexioenesystems.

Part of the Well-Being Cities project, a unique collaboration between Cities and Memory and C40, a global network of mayors of nearly 100 world-leading cities collaborating to deliver the urgent action needed right now to confront the climate crisis. The project was originally presented at the C40 Cities conference in Buenos Aires in 2022. Explore Well-Being Cities in full at https://citiesandmemory.com/wellbeing-cities/