I am Sitting in a Simulacra [2018]

For 8 loudspeakers.

​

Can the use of technology to make a hyperreal soundscape paradoxically draw us closer to nature?

​

The work uses sound to explore how we might understand authenticity by synthesising a field recording from scratch to recontextualise the listener’s relationship to nature. The hybrid title is a tip of the hat to Alvin Lucier’s well documented reiterative processes of playback and recording in I am Sitting in a Room (1969) and Jean Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality in Simulations and Simulacra, in which argues that simulations of reality, and reality itself, are indistinguishable (1994). A “fake” field recording created in a DAW by mimicking source field recordings was played back at the source location, Beeliar Wetlands, Western Australia, and recorded. This was repeated several times. All recordings were then arranged back in the DAW, processed and mixed for octaphonic array. This work extends my exploration of digital mimesis techniques and psychoacoustics with the aim to create uncertainty in what the listener considers real or fake, and through the process, learns to focus on listening to the environment with more intent.