O Keeffe, Linda (2016) Sonifying Memory : Creative approaches to representing socially constructed soundscapes. In: Sensory Arts and Design :. Bloomsbury. ISBN 1474280196
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Abstract
This chapter examines an artist residency at the Leitrim Sculpture Centre in Ireland which culminated in the construction of a solo exhibition in 2014. The work was an attempt to represent artistically the soundscape memories of a collection of five older adults who had lived in or near the Smithfield area of Dublin from the 1940s, and sonic data collected by 84 teenagers age 15-16 living in or around Smithfield today. These participants were part of a large PhD research project, which was examining the co-construction of an urban soundscape. The study was interrogating the potential of sound to shape communities' perception of place. Further the research found that the users of space play a part in the co-construction of space, not in an actual physical re-design but in the re-imagining of spatial use and meaning, through the deployment of their own sounds. This research was never intended for installation; instead, the focus was on an examination of the sound as a social construct. However, in reimagining the findings as a work of art, new ideas and questions emerged about how one can represent sensory knowledge through creative practice. This paper will look at both the collection and some of the findings from the research, and how this was translated into a sound installation.