Forest Listening – An audio-visual installation

Abstract

‘Forest Listening’ is an artwork that combines the field recording ‘Rainstorm Inside Forest Earth’ with its corresponding sound visualisation. The visualisation is a diagrammatical investigation that expands the form and function of the spectrogram from the explanatory to the exploratory. This expansion occurs in three ways: translation of the format from digital to analogue; the creation of four diagrams depicting separate levels of volume dynamics; and remaking those four diagrams as cyanotype prints using tonal shades to represent volume dynamics. The field recording ‘Rainstorm Inside Forest Earth’ is combined with hanging canvas banners, made from the cyanotype prints, to create the multimodal installation ‘Forest Listening’. Analysis of exhibiting ‘Forest Listening’ in the Limnerslease woodland at the Watts Artist Gallery & Artist Village, Surrey, UK, suggests that the woodland setting augments the multimodal listening experience, drawing attention to both the artwork and the forest itself.