SOUNDSTORY
Sirpa Jokinen
Artist’s statement
The presently surrounding space and the problematics of location are the starting points for my artworks. I am interested in including to my works traces of habits and manners people exercise in certain places. My approach to the current situation is conceptual. The works are often site specific.
Recently I have used sound, objects, drawings and photographs as medium in my installations.
Installations Places, Sounds, Words (2005) in the Mission 17 Gallery in San Francisco and Conversations with plants (2008) at the Botanical Gardens in Helsinki were based on recordings made with participants who were invited to join the projects. Sound installation Flight no: 3 (2009) is a construction of ventilation tubes through which recordings made in aeroplanes during flight are being played.
Sound installation Flight no: 3 deal with the state- of- minds and the physical structures connected to flying.
Flying in an airplane can be experienced as a claustrophobic situation where one has to listen to the safety instructions that refer to a catastrophe when tied to one's seat without being able to move. Flight no:3 consists of recordings made during flight with a self made piazo contact microphone from the wall surface of the airplane. They are played through construction of ventilation tubes in the gallery space. This soundtrack is recorded sounds of motor and safety instructions of different languages from airplanes of various sizes and nationalities. Its duration is about 10 minutes.
The ventilation tube construction modifies the resonance of the sounds and makes them spatial; they appear to be heard from different points in the surrounding space. The installation is built of ventilation tubes of various sizes that now operate as speakers.
They form two stereo pairs. The work aims to find alternative ways to play sounds. Piazo elements amplified by audio transformes are installed inside the tubes. Piazo element is an electronic component that is used for example in doorbells or toys.
CONVERSATIONS WITH PLANTS
The Installation
Several people were asked to talk to plants as well as a permission to be recorded while they did the talking. In the beginning it was hard to find participants but as soon as I learned the right kind of people to be asked there were no more problems.
The conversations are in Finnish, Estonian, Swedish, English, French, Parsi, Japanese and Korean.
In these conversations the plants are asked if they are thirsty or lonely and if they have any memories. The cactuses are also accused of moving the rocks around them at night and just pretending to be motionless. They are recited a sonnet by Shakespeare. There is also singing, humming, crying, laughing and whistling to the plants and of course sounds of water.
The sounds come out of 16 units of ceramic flower pots that serve as speakers. The pots are placed among the plants in the desert room of the University Botanic Gardens in Helsinki. Each ceramic pot has a pietzo disc attached to its bottom. The tallest of the pots is 70cm and the smallest 12cm. The nicest echoing sound comes from the tall and narrow pot.
The installation is presented through June 10th to July 6th .2008
In the course of this exhibition I have noticed that the plants do also reply!!!!
They shed flowers and leaves into the pots from where the sounds come from. It looks beautiful. The most curious thing was that I found a small orange inside one of the pots, although there are no orange trees growing in the desert room!
TAKE A WINTER WALK IN THE GARDEN
WITH THE SPIRITS OF JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU (French philosopher 1712-1778)
YOU CAN FOLLOW THE WALK OUTSIDE IN THE GARDENS AND HEAR WHAT IT SOUNDS AND LOOKS LIKE IN JANUARY
WHEN YOU LEAVE AN ID CARD TO THE CASHIER YOU CAN BORROW A MP3 PLAYER AND HEADPHONES
PLEASE RETURN THE HEADSET TO THE CASHIER. THE DURATION OF THE WALK IS 15.16 MIN AND IT IS MAINLY IN ENGLISH
Take A Winter Walk, 2009
Soundwalk composition for headphones, duration 15,16min
Winter Soundscape of the garden and quotations from The Reveries Of The Solitary Walker by Jean-Jacques Rousseau edited as a story of the walk
University Botanical Gardens of Helsinki in August
YOU CAN'T THINK DIFFERENTLY
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