MTAA - Music 4 Music 4 Airports, 2015

One day in the mid-1970s, Brian Eno was waylaid in the Cologne Bonn Airport. Annoyed by the airports soundscape, Eno develops a plan to build a sound installation for the space. Eno works out the framework for the installation in his groundbreaking 1978 album - Ambient 1 - Music for Airports. Eno built the album, consisting of only 4 tracks, by manipulating phasing tape loops. The resulting work moves between music, soundscape, and audio wallpaper.

Some time has passed since the 70s. Tape loops have been replaced by computer algorithms. Our airports now function under the watchful eyes of the TSA. Although travel has changed, being stuck in an airport today might be the same drag as it was in the 70s, but with slightly better coffee. As technology skips happily along and our air travel becoming both trauma inducing and mind numbly dull, 2015 felt like a good moment to revisit Eno’s score.

In the work, I live captures four session of online surfing to combine Eno’s tracks (via youTube) with explorations of two European airports - Paris Orly, Cologne Bonn and two American airports - LGA, JFK. Each of the track/ airports is surfed on the internet using a different default web search method. Track 1 / 1 explores Paris Orly by Google street view, 1 / 2 looks at Cologne Bonn’s via the airports live webcam, Tack 2 /1 works with image searches of LGA and Track 2 / 2 sees JKF within You Tube.

The work joins with and pushes against the passive sounds of a bygone ideal for world travel. It plays with and against the sounds not only in the subject of what airports have become decades later but with the medium of the web in which the site and sounds are performed. permanent link to this post