Janet Cardiff - Forty Part Motet
Janet Cardiff is a Canadian born sound installation artist, who creates what she refers to as sound 'sculptures' (Cardiff 2017), which are interactive in nature, engaging her audience into an immersive and unique experience. A main forte of Cardiff is a form of installation which she refers to as 'audio walks' (Tate, 2017).
Forty Part Motet is an installation which breaks a vocal piece down to forty individual voices. The idea here as Cardiff (2017) explains is that 'our ears are designed for 3 dimensional sound'. In assessing this, she deconstructed Thomas Till's Spem in Alium into 40 singular voices, and formed them into a circle. What can be witnessed by this is that the audience are then encouraged to walk around. Very few people, if any, will stand in a single spot, to hear a single voice. Majority of people will either sit in the middle with their heads down and eyes closed, or, slowly pace around the circle.
What is interesting in a sound piece such as this, is that there are so many individual layers that add up to such an elegant and cohesive, unified sound. This, through recording sounds in Sydney's city would be difficult to achieve. Where a whole sound may have perfect qualities, individuals are able to listen to each individual sound and potentially its imperfections (npr, 2017).
Here I must consider firstly that the musical score itself was not written by Cardiff, instead she turned a whole sound into her own composition by separating voices and grouping them in certain ways. Whereas, here I begin with my consideration of Sydney's city - noise. Here I must breakdown the music of the city in a way which is still cohesive, yet give it the ability to move people.
I achieved this through the children who are heard to be laughing throughout the audio. Among all of the busy working class people, cars, ferries and overall traffic Sydney is comprised of, we still have humanity. Beyond the 'noise' peoples inhabitance of an area creates music in our over populated case. We here the waters rushing, the ferries honking and the hail crashing, but we also hear the children, playing around and enjoying our city in a naïve and innocent way.
Link to video: https://youtu.be/WgF1ar6pmUM
Reference List:
MoMA, 2018, The Forty Part Motet (A reworking of “Spem in Alium,” by Thomas Tallis 1556) 2001, New York, viewed on 2nd January, <https://www.moma.org/collection/works/87291>.
Npr, 2017, The Power of Forty Speakers in a Room, Washington, viewed on 3rd January, <https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/03/10/519587414/the-power-of-40-speakers-in-a-room>.
Tate, 2017, Janet Cardiff's Forty Part Motet, United Kingdom, viewed on 2nd January, <https://www.tate.org.uk/art/videos/tateshots/janet-cardiffs-forty-part-motet>.
TateShots, 2017, Janet Cardiff and the Forty Part Motet, video recording, YouTube, viewed on 4th January, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=38ORiaia9r8>.
