Tash van Schaardenburg
An Acoustic Stroll through the Urban Landscape
This series of works is located in the inner city of Tāmaki Makaurau. It is a documentation of the soundscapes and the stories within. These sounds, so familiar to native city dwellers, are lifted from life into the artistic institution, to evoke a deeper consideration and maybe a deeper appreciation than in the moments of our busy lives when we pass them by. They present a rich, acoustic world inadvertently created by the chaos of the city; neglected noises are placed on pedestals and everyday sounds are inspected as precious sources of anthropological reflection. These works highlight inadvertent social negotiations of sound in public space, and at their core is a desire to connect and encourage enjoyment of the unavoidable sounds of our lives by putting a comparative focus on the audience’s own acoustic world.
AKL Sound Exploration Guide is an interactive map documenting many of the sounds and soundscape of Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand). This ongoing project began in the central city and will be expanding outwards into the suburbs in 2019. Members of the public can add to the sound map using street directions or longitude and latitude coordinates by emailing the artist. The map not only represents a sensory observation of the city, but also a history of the artist's and other contributor's listening experiences as they navigate, with a reflection of their auditory biases.
