Sång
Sång
Echoes of our time
Background
The idea for Echoes of Our Time (2020 - 2022) came to me during a walk with my daughter in the nearby castle garden.
I live near Wenngarns Castle, an area rich in history, beautiful natural surroundings, and well-preserved buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries. I feel greatly inspired by the environment in which I live. Close to Wenngarn is also Sweden's first capital, Sigtuna.
As a sound engineer, my work often involves recording, using, and storing sounds in digital format. However, I find that sound preservation of a place is quite rare compared to visual preservation methods such as photography.
I pondered over what I, as a sound engineer, could do within my field to preserve, capture, and highlight a place, and this led to the idea to apply for funds at The Swedish Arts Grants Committee for the project: Ekot av vår tid (Swedish)
The project essentially involves using modern audio technology to capture the spatial characteristics of a place and preserve or recreate its acoustics at a later time (known as convolution reverb). The files created are called impulse responses (IR files) and should be seen as an acoustic filter or digitally stored microphone setup from a location rather than a traditional playable audio file. This is demonstrated on the exhibition page here on the website, where IR files from different locations have been applied to the same audio recordings.
We who live now are among the first to have the technical capability to use this format. Just like the first photographs taken almost 200 years ago. The impulse response files created at the project's locations are likely the very first of their kind from the locations. Over 60 locations was recorded during the course of the project 2020 - 2022. And many more places have been added to the library during 2023 and 2024.
Wenngarns Castle
The projects goals
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Initiate a spatial collection in the format of IR files from some of our unique locations in Sweden.
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Preserve the project's locations (IR files) long-term in a national archive.
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Create a physical interactive exhibition focusing on sound and spatial cultural heritage using the IR/convolution reverb method for the first time.
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Release several of the project's IR-files for public use. These files can be used in music, film, and game production as a reverb tool.
Future
The future goal is to expand and to add locations to the collection. Sweden is full of places rich in history and cultural heritage that is worth to capture in this format.
With today's significant conflicts, where invaluable cultural heritage is being destroyed forever, this work feels more important than ever.
About the Exhibition
In the exhibition here on the site, I want to put resonance and acoustics in focus and let you as a visitor experience them through hearing. How are we affected by the acoustics of places, and how much does it really influence our overall experience of a location?
I hope this exhibition can make you, as a visitor, think about how sound environments affect you, how they influence your experience of a place, and why.
I believe it is easy to argue why an impulse response file could become a format for cultural heritage in the future. If IR files are created for a place and that place is later destroyed or altered, a sound imprint of the place is preserved and can even be "revisited."
Sigtuna Museum 2022/05 - 2022/11
Sundsvalls Museum (Kulturmagasinet) 2024/02 - 2024/05
