Garden / Paul Devens (NL)
Creating a predestined environment for the transmission of sounds, which are removed from the original context, opens a new and exclusive stage for the transformation of sense and meaning.
Garden researches the culture of today in West Africa, Senegal, still colored from a colonial history. This was performed through the method of field recording. The technology of surround sound was used to gain a sonic snapshot that would represent the directional qualities of the sound sources.
The recordings were taken at locations that shape the official-, but more important, the informal economy.
Most of these places are packed with second-hand, abandoned goods from our consumer society; barely repaired cars serve as taxis, fixed, yet leaking refrigerators being used to cool fish at the market place, scaffolding is held together with the iron wires from burned car tires. The migration of used goods, devices and machines for the benefit of a functioning economy comes with a costly prize tag for the countries ecology and for its people's health.
A stage of processing followed up to the recording phase; home made electronics and make shift resonating bodies were put to use to get a specific filtering - and to relate to the do-it-yourself way of life of the origin of where the recordings were taken.
A new context is created within the exhibition space for playing the immersive composition; the seated visitor is surrounded by a multi-channel speaker system and is somewhat disconnected from visual stimuli.
"One important thread of my research is how failure, conflict and systems of control leave its impression on the human landscape. These topics know many different manifestations and appearances everywhere. From my practice I always have to deal with the fact I'm partly a tourist, a bystander. Here, my aim is to create a condition where the audience is encouraged to engage themselves with the topics and from that, submerge in an experience and learn about their positions. Sometimes nomadism is a notion of traveling, it always is the move from one perspective to one other."