In The Clockwork Forest, we have created the first chapter of an untold fairy tale.

Just turn the key and the mechanical soundtrack will accompany your journey in to the forest.

Commissioned by the National Forestry Commission, this installation opened on the 7th October, 2011 in Grizedale, England.

Click here for a Radio Cumbria interview [Audio Recording]

(See also Railings, Bins and Benches, The Tail and Wave)

The project began thirteen years ago, as an ongoing art scheme in urban areas. Originally, the awards were installed without permission, appearing over night in areas of outstanding sonic importance.

In order that the plaques may be seen by many, the awards are now installed permanently, and their locations listed in the Sound Award logs that will be visitable online. We are currently in the process of adding the entire Soundawards list to the site, including maps and recordings.

For more information visit: soundawards.org when its complete!

P.S Over the years since we created the Soundawards installation there have been many projects that have sought to record or map areas of sonic importance. We will link to them here shortly. However, greyworld’s Soundawards installation is unique in several ways. Firstly, the project is primarily concerned with urban areas – the unmarked Sonic Monuments that exist in cities. In many ways, these are truer works of public art than the bronze statue or the highly polished rock we often find in cities. Secondly, whilst greyworld created the system, anyone can award a location a Soundaward and log its location.

Soundaward 79 [Audio]

Visitors to the installation space are requested to think of a word. Any word at all. They are handed a white cube, which they hold. As they speak their word in to the box, the box begins to glow with a gentle blue light.

They are then invited to explore what appears to be a large empty space, delineated by a red line around its edges. As they wander off in to this area they realise that in fact, invisible to the eye, there is a rich sonic environment to explore, full of words that are nestling amongst trees, flitting around pools of water, or hiding out in caves.

Some of these words live here permanently, and some have been dropped by people walking through the space. If the visitor wants to do this, they simply tip over their box, the light drains away, and their word falls out, living in that area for several hours, for others to discover.. When they are done, they return the box, to be filled by another word.

The sound work is comprised of six individual compositions, which respond to Flavin’s installations in a particular space in the gallery. Each piece infuses the gallery space with sound in a way that compliments Flavin’s compositions of “electric light defining space”.

The soundscape draws on the key themes of the exhibition, capturing Flavin’s ironic sense of humour, complex relationship with religion and commitment to minimalism. Choral elements interweave with spare electronica, hypnotic drones, sustained echoes and elegiac melodies to create a rich tapestry of sound that responds to Flavin’s revolutionary use of light as a medium for creative expression.

Visitors to the gallery were able to download the sound work from the gallery’s website onto their MP3 players to listen to as they explored the gallery. Apple also donated twenty i-pods to allow visitors without access to an MP3 player to experience the soundscape.

The exhibition ran from January-April 2006 and was the first comprehensive retrospective of Dan Flavin’s work.

Track One
Track Two
Track Three
Track Four
Track Five
Track Six

Sound is an important part of everything we create – from playful sound installations in foot tunnels, with railings and bus stops, to brainstorming in the studio with a pot of coffee and some Ella Fitzgerald in the background. Here’s a selection of past tracks we’ve created, inspired by the forgotten art of Musak, the musical potential of fridges, and the number Zero…

We have always been fascinated by the creative potential of Musak – highly sophisticated musical compositions reduced to simple aural wallpaper. Radio Moonlight is an album that creates a fictitious radio station, dedicated to the fine art of Musak that you might encounter on your way home at 4am, eyes tired, searching for something to listen to. “That was the Bossanova Combo, and Shake em.”

Zero is a track that we wrote for an album featuring compositions by several sound artists, each inspired by the number zero. It may be more musings on Musak…

To accompany our sound installation, called the Layer, at Greenwich Foot tunnel we created an album of samples taken from the installation. Each track captures the passage of a different ‘walkers’ travelling through the space, from old men with walking sticks to  a young couple with a small baby…

All our albums are available for purchase. More information will be posted here soon.

The “Sonic Boom” exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London, U.K. featured some of the world’s finest artists working with sound. We created Stairway a site specific sound sculpture, which activate the two main approaches to the gallery.

The steps down from Waterloo Bridge and the ramp up from the Festival Hall were fitted with sensors so that acted as sound environments, sensitive to the movement of people as they ascended or descended the stairways.

The work of art was exhibited from 27 April – 18 June 2000.