Continuing through Utopia, today’s theme is hardship, whether experienced by the citizen of Utopia, or by those voyaging to the country in a ship struggling against storms.

Through the decks of a ship – Bethan Davis, Birmingham, UK

“I have created an aural journey that walks the listener through the decks of an old ship in the throes of a storm.

I wanted to create an environment that could be taken from any point in history, I purposefully excluded any audio that could be attributed to the past or present such as speech, or a ship’s bell.

The grid reference I worked with contains a ship that seems to be in distress.

This inspired me to design a soundscape with a sense of narrative, to describe the story of the ship in turmoil.

I built the soundscape using soundwalks, field recordings and direct recordings that I collected from various locations around the UK. Most of the audio heard is unaffected as I wanted my piece to sound as real and natural as possible.”

 

First hardship, then Utopia – Wing On Tse, Philadelphia, USA

“The section I did was A5, which is a big boat on the map. When the listeners listen to my part, they will notice a lot the rain and thunder sound behind the background.

I understand that this project is called Cities and Memory: Utopia, but I believe before any people live in the beautiful place, they might have some difficult times or hardship situations.

Later, they will enjoy more and happier to live the place that they dream about.”