Industrial Soundscape Installation Performance. Riverside Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1998

In 1998, with the help of John Tilley I set out to mic up and amplify the building area and contents of the top floor of the Riverside in Newcastle. Riverside, an ex printworks was Newscastle's prime 'alternative' club. The top floor of the buildong was a huge open space with a cast iron and glass roof. We took what we could findin the space, including and aquarium, a drafting table, nails, bins, chairs, a hot-dog heater and a compressor, and amplified it all.

You could hear the performance 3 miles away!

Although the piece didn't work as I'd wanted it to, the ensuing marathon performance had its interesting points as we just intuitively began to work out sounds and effects, layering echoes and noises by moving the amplified objects.

Greatly enjoyable although in retrospect more of an industrial/noise concert than the ambient soundscape I'd wished for. With the benefit of hind-sight I think that if we'd rigged it up slightly differently and then opened the large loading/hoist doors (we were 5 floors up on the river's side) we could have used air currents and removed the over-dominant human element.

The piece's working title was 'in every object sleeps a sound' - which was a hell of a lot better than the one we went for on the flyers!.
on the evening.


my second favourite instrument.


setting up.


bits of cinema seats, apparently.


installation shot.
john playing a large flexible tube with a newspaper.


nails, pipes and bottles in a bin. audible for up to three miles.