Sound Field

Sonic Postcards is a great source of inspiration for us. Visit their site and listen to soundscapes made by 3000(+) kids mainly from England.

In 2006 I was part of a teachers team with visual artist Henriette Brun and writer Dy Plambeck conducting a workshop for 5th graders at Islands Brygge Skole.

During the first two days Dy guided the kids in writing personal stories. The next couple of days Henriette helped them visualise those stories by taking photos, painting, drawing and manipulating images in Photoshop. The last three days I guided them in the creation of ambient soundscapes for their stories. The last day the kids gathered in groups of three and helped each other changing slides, controlling the sound and telling their story in front of an audience of parents and relatives.

What worked out great was that by covering both verbal, visual and auditive languages, all the kids had a good chance of being brilliant at something. I was surprised what intimate stories came out and how confident they were in presenting them.

The software for controlling the soundscapes live was a Max/MSP patch I had created specifically for the workshop. It consisted of a plane on which sounds were positioned. By dragging an icon resembling a head as seen from above, the kids could control their position in a soundscape, and in effect mix and pan several sounds with the stroke of a computer mouse.