These are the echoes: Sound Proof 2008-2012

Abstract

As a series of yearly exhibitions emerging from an organic process, Sound Proof represented an active cultural memory of the development of the Stratford site of London 2012, from 2008 until the opening of the Games. Through its twenty-eight artist commissions over a five-year period, the series reflected on changes to the site and expressed the evolving mood as the event neared. Sound Proof had heritage concerns at its core. One of the key aims was to retain a record of a moment in time highlighting the tangible cultural landscape and the intangible dimension of memory while the site was still in a state of becoming. The memories generated during that period are expressed most directly by the seventeen original sound works produced for the series, works which threaded physical sound with sensed experience so as to convey feeling and intent. The works fall under four general categories: sound as field of interactions, sound as experience, sound as active cultural memory, and sound as memory track. The key link between the exhibition series as a whole and the individual sound works produced by the artists was the context for the works: the locations, settings and communities that engendered those works. Some key works in the series isolated sound as pure experience; others conveyed active cultural memories of the people and places affected by the arrival of the Olympics. And a number of pieces built up a sense of time passing through the build up of a memory track, unfolding as layered historical records. Through the various works, Sound Proof developed a comprehensive catalogue during the period between 2008 and 2012, thus preserving sonic memory traces of London 2012 as it evolved over time.