WIRA: Floating Land 2015

WIRA sound installation on Noosa River
WIRA sound installation on Noosa River

WIRA is an interactive sound installation that reimagines the world beneath the surface of the Noosa River for Floating Land 2015 at the Noosa Regional Gallery in Queensland, Australia. The installation opens on August 27 and runs until October 18.

WIRA reimagines the Noosa River in sound. The installation can be experienced by walking along the river with a smart phone and listening to content that is geotagged from Noosa Regional Gallery to the river mouth. As you walk along the river bank, the sounds of the Noosa River system are layered with sonic art, stories and soundscapes from Floating Land over the last ten years.

The theme of Floating Land 2015 is Reflect & Re-imagine. This theme provides an opportunity to pause and reconnect with the grassroots beginnings of this event, exploring the connection between art, the environment and the local community. Now in its 8th iteration Floating Land, an international event celebrating art and the environment. In 2015 Floating Land will celebrate artworks, artists and locations involved in previous Floating Land events.

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To experience WIRA download the free app Recho to your iPhone or iPad and start outside Noosa Regional Gallery (maps are available inside the gallery). The installation is best experienced wearing headphones. Those without access to a smart phone can listen to the soundscapes inside Noosa Regional Gallery.

Visit www.leahbarclay.com/wira for further information.

Subterranean Sketch #WLD2015

Subterranean Sketch was composed for the Sonic Terrain compilation for World Listening Day 2015. The compilation features over 40 new works using recordings of water as source material for experimental compositions.

Listening to Subterranean Sketch on Soundcloud here, the entire compilation is available from Sonic Terrain here.

This piece draws on a series of short hydrophone recordings from bodies of water across Australia, Cambodia, India and the USA. The recordings were made during the River Listening project, an art-science investigation into the creative possibilities of aquatic bioacoustics and the potential for new approaches in the management and conservation of global river systems.

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This year’s theme for World Listening Day was “H2O”.

The global water crisis means 750 million people around the world lack access to safe water. Water is rapidly becoming the commodity of the 21st century and the catastrophic effects of climate change often involve negative associations with water. Rising sea levels, devastating floods, melting ice in Antarctica and droughts spreading throughout the globe, all highlight our increasingly unpredictable and extreme relationship with water.

Yet H2O is vital for life, water covers 71% of the Earth’s surface, and 60% of our bodies are made of water. Oceans, rivers and lakes are the core of many of the world’s iconic cities and historically civilizations formed around water. Indigenous communities across the globe believe water is at the core of our existence. For thousands of years communities have lived sustainably by holding significant cultural and spiritual value of rivers, lakes and oceans.

#RiverScope

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is a new project for World Rivers Day 2015 that encourages people across world to share their rivers LIVE on Periscope.

Periscope is a new app that explores the idea of discovering the world through someone else’s eyes. What if you could see through the eyes of a protester in Ukraine? Or watch the sunrise from a hot air balloon in Cappadocia? A picture may be worth a thousand words, but live video can take you someplace and show you around.

Periscope is rapidly expanding, but its conservation and creative possibilities are yet to be truly explored. We want to connect people across the world to global rivers on World Rivers Day. As an experiment to launch this project, we are also going to explore the sonic possibilities of Periscope with live streaming hydrophones.

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National Science Week 2015

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National Science Week is Australia’s annual celebration of science and technology. Running each year in August, it features more than 1000 events around Australia, including those delivered by universities, schools, research institutions, libraries, museums and science centres. These events attract a wide audience from children to adults, and science amateurs to professionals. Over one million people participate in science events across the nation.

Estalished in 1997, National Science Week provides an opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of Australian scientists’ to the world of knowledge. It also aims to encourage an interest in science pursuits among the general public, and to encourage younger people to be fascinated by the world we live in.

As part of National Science Week, River Listening is hosting events along the Brisbane River in collaboration with IGNITE.

IGNITE Celebrate National Science Week across the Cultural Precinct in SouthBank.

River Listening Sound Walks

When Sunday 16 August 10am, 12pm, 2pm

Where Meet in the Queensland Museum Level 2 in front of the cloakroom desk at the National Science Week Banner.

Cost Free

River Listening is an interdisciplinary project exploring the art and science of listening to rivers. Join the River Listening team on a sound walk along the Brisbane river to learn about the project and explore aquatic soundscapes. Participants will also experience a demo of the River Listening sound installation and explore a hidden world of sound throughout South Bank Parklands.