Kaleb Bennett

Terminus Project, 2005

Kaleb Bennett

Haulashore Island: (guided sound performance – treble)

Format:

The performer leads a group of people around the designated site (Haulashore Island). Site specific audio compositions are audible through sound equipment worn/carried by the performer - sound will be audible from the carried equipment throughout most of the journey. A microphone may also be incorporated for additional live sound, as well as the unamplified voice of the performer.

Stops are made at locations selected by the performer. Speech may be added to the aural composition at these stops, acting as information, instruction, emotive prompts, or to otherwise supply texture to the journey.

Speech may also be incorporated while moving between stops: the performer is to utilise their voice at their own discretion in a manner that they see fit regarding the nature of the action.

Dunedin City: (guided sound performance – bass)

Format:

The performer(s) operate a vehicle capable of transporting passengers (van, minibus, etc) on an audio tour of selected locations around the Dunedin city area. The Dunedin city port area functions as a pick-up/drop off zone: the tour van will operate from a designated location within the mapped area.

Passengers are seated in the rear of the vehicle. Audio is played through sound equipment installed throughout the vehicle. The driver(s)/performer(s) determine the audio, combining various pre-recorded compositions with their own voices in real time.

The vehicle travels to a series of locations, pre-selected by the performer(s) of the action, where additional vocal information is supplied by the performer(s). This information may be filtered and manipulated live through additional sound equipment.

Once the journey is complete the vehicle returns to the pick up/drop off zone and the passengers are able to disembark.

Background

Both sites prompt certain similar ideas, such as colonisation, pioneering, frontiers, journeys (body/mind), environmental impact, human tenacity, human impact, and responsibility.

Both pieces in this work will use the immediacy of sound and bodily action to convey responses to both sites: Dunedin City and Haulashore Island. One will be a journey on foot, shared by the audience and the artist as the work unfolds in real time. The other will be a journey by vehicle, a limited number of people travelling in a prepared tour van delivering site specific audio and the performer's voice in real time. Information will be delivered in the most direct manner possible.