Sounds of Europe
Start date: May 1, 2011,
Field recording (sound recording outside of a recording studio) has become a medium in various artistic domains. Q-O2 (BE), MTG (ES), IRZU (SI) and CRiSAP (UK) started working a year ago on the project ‘Sounds of Europe’ which acknowledges the increase of field recording activity in music and sound art in recent years. The project aims to share and exchange artistic works which deal with the poetry of the sound of the world, as well as to share experience and knowledge. It also aims to exchange sounds themselves across borders, as field recording is a very accessible and democratic creative tool. We want to encourage not just simply hearing the world around us, but the value of listening to it and recording it, thereby achieving an openness to our environment. By exploring and sharing sounds throughout Europe we aim to make people sensitive to discovering both their familiar as well as unknown surroundings. With the 4 main partners, each with different expertises, we collaborate with several associated partners to organise Sound Exchange Workshops, lectures, some key-events and a traveling webproject. The project targets a public audience, as well as artists of all generations and cultural operators. Utilising the main partners’ experience and existing relations within the target groups, we implement a communication plan with help of different media. With the existence of a growing network of European sound-oriented organizations and sound artists, which has already successfully evolved during the preparation of the project, we believe we can inspire other organisations to join to cooperate Europe-wide. To make the exchanges of this network useful and practical, the cooperative activities and results of the project will be made available both on the ‘Sounds of Europe’ website, and in a publication and audioreleases. With European support we will develop cross-border dialogue and collaboration, building and establishing a further exchange of ideas for the future.