RESIDENCES

Andrea-Jane Cornell
Tracing the Sharawadji
Dates: November 2006
Length : 8 weeks
Format: sound installation

Tracing the Sharawadji is an eight channel sound installation that seeks to elicit moments of beauty by recreating and mixing the ephemeral sonorities which resonate in the everyday soundscape along the CP train tracks that run north of the Mile End and Plateau Mont-Royal neighborhoods. The project takes an improvisational approach to soundscape composition resting upon fleeting and spontaneous juxtapositions of sound, which reflect the inherent unpredictability of naturally occurring soundscapes. The project's success rests upon the creation of a graphical musical instrument/user interface in that will serve as both a sampler and a diffuser. The intent is to draw attention to the way that sounds combine and create moments of beauty, bordering on the sublime in the mundane urban soundscape.


Biography :

Andrea-Jane Cornell likens the sonorities present in the urban environment to an assemblage of musical instrument, which are randomly orchestrated by its inhabitants. She engages in the practice of listening as a creative act where naturally occurring sounds in an environment are relied upon to guide her through their space on both the physical and acoustic planes. A master's candidate in Media Studies at Concordia University her research centers on sonic environments and the perception of such environments when taken out of their context and placed in an enclosed space.