Call for Volunteers: The Centre of Curious Sonic Investigation

The Centre of Curious Sonic Investigation is working with Voices of War & Peace WW1 Engagement Centre and Birmingham City University’s Margaret Street School of Art on Absconditi Viscus, a phonic residency by Justin Wiggan.

Absconditi Viscus or ‘hidden entries’ is a series of phonic excavations and sonic mining from the BCU Margaret Street archives from 1914 to 1918.

Justin, working alongside staff and students in a series of immersive workshops, has been exploring possible phonic residue from Margaret Street between these years of huge social and political turbulence, revealing how the trauma of the Great War impacted on the school and permeated into the activities of teaching and being taught. The results of this phonic excavation have been developed in workshops with different groups, learning new processes and methodology of sound as a creative investigative practice.

Justin has been analysing, reflecting, excavating and editing the sounds that will result in 10 pieces in total. These sound pieces will be logged online and accessible through quark codes fired onto tiles which will then be embedded into the fabric of the building. The codes will be accessed using smart phones, leading to the physical folding of sound pieces that have become ‘hidden entries’ or in Latin ‘Absconditi Viscus’. The process also engages the public with the building once a sound file has been discovered, channelling their focus on the physical surroundings and introducing a dialogue with phonic history.

In order to produce the last 5 tiles Justin is looking for volunteer detectives from all ages and backgrounds to become part of the Centre of Curious Sonic Investigations and will be running a workshop at the Library of Birmingham on 23 September from 11.00 am until 1 pm in the Heritage Learning Space (Floor 4).

The first workshop will share the project so far and recruit sonic detectives who will contribute sounds both found and recreated that will be included in the sound tiles. Justin will explain the sounds that he’s looking for and how these sounds can be captured and shared.

A second workshop will be held sometime in October to explore the sounds that have been collected.

All detectives need no prior knowledge of sound creation, editing or technology and can work solo, in pairs or in small groups.

The finished tiles will be launched on site at Margaret Street in early December 2015.

For more information on becoming a detective on this unique project please contact Dr Nicola Gauld, Coordinator of Voices of War & Peace, n.gauld@bham.ac.uk

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