Mutant Urbanism
The piece within this zone reflects the dominant elements of Singapore's urban soundscape. It is comprised of a series of short compositions derived from various recordings of construction site machinery, transport / vehicles, and other typically urban sounds in Singapore.
The forms of the sounds in these compositions exist in a constant state of morphology - twisting and mutating towards an uncertain future. There is a variance from slight manipulation to severe alterations of the source material through digital editing techniques, sampling, and effects processing:
Even for the ‘severe' compositions, there is still some trace of the source of the sound, as to not obscure the potential meanings intended.
The overtly digital and unsubtle transformations of sounds within this zone perhaps mirror the fact that the impact of something like construction on the soundscape is very obvious. Also, the resulting timbre of such audio manipulation techniques are intrinsically tied to the digital; the framework that are lives are currently absorbed in. Through characterising the sounds in this way, they perhaps embody a sense of our increasing immersion within the digital technologies as we move towards the future.
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