Reading, UK, Seville, Spain by Duncan Whitley for Soundart Radio

The piece weaves together a series of field recordings from two projects, the first of which examines, critiques and celebrates the language of football crowd sound, the other, a collaboration with sound artist and composer James Wyness, takes as its subject the ritual Holy Week processions of Seville, Spain.
These two phonographic projects develop through growing archives of multichannel sound, which Duncan uses as raw material for his sound installations.

“My artistic practice is orientated towards sound installation, and radio presents quite a different challenge. In this piece I wanted to see how it felt to slip between the two dynamic and contrasting soundscapes of Holy Week in Seville and a football match at Reading FC’s Madejski Stadium. The editing is simple and transparent, working with real-time events and with few cuts.”

Duncan’s work appropriates forms and conventions of sound installation, field recording, oral history, and sonic archive. In ongoing sound recording projects Duncan has focussed on collecting, analysing, categorising and editing raw material extracted from the social and urban fabric. Underpinning his work is an interest in the social and documentary value of sound as a medium, and the use of sound and new media to develop alternative narrative forms. Whilst displaying a critical interest in sound and audio work, Duncan remains committed to producing intuitive, accessible work for broad audiences.

James Wyness is a sound artist and composer, working almost exclusively in the electroacoustic medium. He produces soundwalks, work for radio, sound installation and multichannel concert works. He is currently studying a PhD in composition at the University of Aberdeen.