On Edge
audio installation
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On Edge was created from field recordings and found sounds for The Witching Hour, a sonic art project curated by Goat Major Project, Cardiff. Comprising twelve sound works from a range of artists The Witching Hour pieces lasted exactly an hour when linked together. Leona picked up and played with the notion of time, literally as well as metaphorically - the duration of On Edge being five times the length of the chimes of midnight as struck by the most famous clock in the world. Using the usually unconsidered sound of the clock mechanism as it strikes twelve, other elements are introduced in order to create an intimate, darkly surreal, experience that invites the hearer to become a listener, and consider what part time plays in our accelerating social complexities. |
text for programme accompanying exhibition
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Time, in terms of naming it, marking it, is a human construct, existing in this way for no other species on our planet. Our urban environments are founded on time management, physical and mental progresses being controlled by programs, mechanical devices, decisions, all dividing each moment from another, continually seeking conformity, control of space and flow, in order that our various increasingly complex systems can function. Paradoxically, time is in shortening supply, but we are totally dependent on our system for governing it.
Bells always signify human interaction in some way. Tollings, chimings, ringings have been calling us to attention for centuries, warning of danger, celebrating highpoints, mourning low ones, dividing time. Bells cut far across the soundscape - we hear them above the hurly-burly. But the Westminster clock tower of London and the sounds of the bells it houses conjure much more than the passing of hours - the chimes, live and broadcast, have become part of major public occasions and institutions. It's the associations that capture attention, more so than the actual sounds that are so familiar as to be heard but not fully listened to.
Bells always signify human interaction in some way. Tollings, chimings, ringings have been calling us to attention for centuries, warning of danger, celebrating highpoints, mourning low ones, dividing time. Bells cut far across the soundscape - we hear them above the hurly-burly. But the Westminster clock tower of London and the sounds of the bells it houses conjure much more than the passing of hours - the chimes, live and broadcast, have become part of major public occasions and institutions. It's the associations that capture attention, more so than the actual sounds that are so familiar as to be heard but not fully listened to.
A while later, the work was chosen to be one of the soundscapes played at The ONCA Gallery, Brighton, during the symposium Sound and the Urban Environment organised by the University of Brighton in May/June 2015.
The piece was reworked much later as On Edge Redux to contribute to The Witching Hour, a week-long series of performances starting at midnight in an empty shop in Newport, South Wales, organised by performers Marega Palser and Steven George Jones. Leona extended the work, and added live mixing during the performance.
A little later again Leona and performance artist Marega Palser used another extended version of the soundscape as the basis of a collaborative sound and contemporary dance performance, Witching Hours, which was presented at The Thursday Show, Shift, Cardiff. Taking advantage of the atmospheric shadows in the low-light cavernous space, sounds and movements formed a symbiotic relationship exploring stages of women's lives.
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