WE LIVE in an increasingly information overloaded, mixed belief, diverse and busy world. So how and where do we consciously hear each other? Where do the voices of anticipated difference and unexpected consonance come to us? Is it possible to find common ground or aspiration among many voices in a shared space?
These are the kind of questions which will emerge from an exciting participatory art project by Zoë Irvine with Lindsay Perth and Jules Rawlinson. 900 Voices is a sound installation exploring notions of belonging, connection and community, blending voices from hundreds of Edinburgh citizens as part of the city’s world-famous August festival season.
900 Voices has been created entirely from recorded conversations with people who live across the city, revealing and blending moments from these exchanges. The recording process took place throughout 2024, with each new citizen’s recording added to the installation’s database on a cumulative basis.
This bold sound art experiment, in which listeners will find themselves participating and hearing anew, will take place at St Giles’ Cathedral as part of the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), celebrating the city’s longstanding tradition of arts and culture and bringing the diverse voices of Scotland’s capital to audiences for EIF, the fringe, and other festival-style events taking place across the city.
That includes the Edinburgh International Book Festival, where 900 Voices producers Zoë, Lindsay, and Jules will discuss their own experiences of gathering, composing and sharing the community’s conversations.
Every experience of 900 Voices will be unique. The experience draws upon a variety of computer procedures to select, combine and place sounds in real-time, as listeners freely walk around the Cathedral. The computer programme makes new choices for each cycle by searching the conversation database for words and themes, moving around the Cathedral’s 46 speakers.
St Giles’ Cathedral, the High Kirk of Edinburgh (Church of Scotland) has been a focal point of religious and community life for nine centuries. A backdrop to Scotland’s turbulent religious history, it has seen the seeds of civil war sown and acted as John Knox’s parish church during the Reformation. When St Giles’ became a cathedral 900 years ago, Edinburgh became a city.
The Edinburgh International Festival is a melting pot of artistic creativity involving classical music, opera, performance, Scottish traditional music and jazz, drama and conversation about the intersection of the arts and a changing world. It was established in 1948 to help restore, revive and reinvigorate the human spirit after the catastrophe of the Second World War.
The 900 Voices creative team are Edinburgh-based international artists. Leading the project are sound artist Zoë Irvine (the Creative Director of 900 Voices) who specialises in working with sound, voice and participative practice; Lindsay Perth, who is a public realm artist and designer with an award-winning socially engaged art practice; and Jules Rawlinson, who is an audio-visual composer, improviser, designer and researcher. 900 Voices is funded by Creative Scotland and St Giles’ Cathedral, and is supported by Edinburgh Napier University.
* During August: attend through the Edinburgh International Festival here. (900 Voices can be experienced on 2–3, 10 and 19–21 August: Book your slot from 6pm until 10pm. Or 4, 11 and 25 August: Book your slot 7.30pm until 10.30pm.)
* After August 2024, 900 Voices will be open to the public every Wednesday (4pm to 6pm) throughout September, October and November. The work will continue to grow, with community events, more recordings, and a closing event in December. Full details here.
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Simon Barrow is director of Ekklesia, and also writes for the Edinburgh Music Review. (This article draws substantially upon media material from 900 Voices, with grateful acknowledgement. Thank you also to the inspirational Mary Miller.)