The Barely Project
Natasha Barrett
-
1Barely: part-1 (2006-07)Natasha Barrett Arr. Natasha Barrett, 2008 [original work]38:58
-
29:35
-
312:54
Programme notes
The Barely Project develops a paradigm within which highly detailed sensory information is explored at the point of the ‘experienced threshold.’ The ‘experienced threshold’ is the point at which we begin to cognitise or attempt to find meaning rather than merely perceive. For example, in terms of our auditory sense the ‘experienced threshold’ is directly connected to the volume and content of the pre-existing sound environment. In an anechoic room, the experienced threshold is that of the threshold of hearing. At a busy train station the experienced threshold is the sound to which we consciously listen as information-gatherers, rather than as passive receivers with no intention to listen or interpret meaning. In a similar way we experience an attention threshold when it comes to visual and spatial experience. In visually overloaded environments we tend to automatically filter out the visual noise or information that is regarded irrelevant for our daily activities. All of our senses may be addressed under The Barely Project paradigm.
The complexity of our everyday stimuli sometimes tends to a state of noise in terms of cognitive and sociological experience. To take in all that is presented to us may result in information overload or even a state of information entropy. On a conceptual level Barely presents an alternative way of organising high levels of information, enticing the individual into deep attention and concentration by offering selective details at a level that is only just perceptible. To date The Barely Project consists of four parts, three of which are on the disc Bouteilles de Klein.
[xii-09]
- Composer(s): Natasha Barrett
- Instrumentation: stereo fixed medium
Works in this cycle
Barely: part-1
Premiere
- October 9, 2007, Ultima 2007
: Concert, Kanonhallen, Oslo (Norway)
- Year of composition: 2006-07
- Other creator(s): Birger Sevaldson
- Cycle: The Barely Project
- Form: installation
Barely: part-1
Barely
The work was designed as a site-specific installation for Kanonhallen in Oslo (Norway). The Germans requisitioned Kanonhallen during WWII for use as an artillery factory. The space is 50 meters long, 13.5 meters wide and 8 meters high. The walls and floor are concrete. High glass windows allow the changing light to penetrate the room throughout the day. Barely
Visual materials for the installation consist of 20 clear, colourless one-mm thick, one-meter wide and four-meter long polycarbonate foils hang from a 9 by 8-meter ceiling grid. The foils were painted with a line pattern in ultraviolet reflective paint. This pattern was designed in detail through computer simulations to both enhance and skew the spatial topology. Naturally occurring sounds from in- and outside the space were recorded and classified in terms of intrinsic (spectral and temporal, or ‘inside’ the sound) and extrinsic (referential, or referring ‘outside’ the sound) content. These materials included everyday sounds such as the activity of a janitor and two onsite workers, sounds from the neighbouring building site, a kindergarten, a motorbike courier and a distant propeller plane. Outdoor sources were recorded both outside and inside Kanonhallen so as to be filtered through the unusual room acoustic. The blend of indoor and outdoor sounds dissolved the sense of boundary. In addition, close-microphone recordings, which exclude room acoustics, were used to rearticulate detail when micro-scale variations in temporal and spectral information were lost. Editing and transformation served two main functions. To explore extrinsic information by creating a continuum from a sound suggesting a direct causal basis or concrete reference, to a sound of remote causal basis or abstract reference. Sounds of concrete reference were used to create a network of indicative relationships suggestive mainly of human activity in ordinary environments. And to explore intrinsic information by drawing attention to, and isolating, small details and fluctuations in sound identity, spectrum and morphology. (Even more information about the work can be found in the composer’s website.)
The listening level of Barely
[xii-09]
The audio of Barely
- Year of composition: 2006-07
- Arranger(s): Natasha Barrett
- Version: Arr. Natasha Barrett, 2008 [original work]
- Cycle: The Barely Project
- Duration: 38:58
- Instrumentation: fixed medium
- Publisher(s): Ymx média
- ISRC: CAD501010221
Barely: part-2
Premiere
- November 7, 2008, Concert, ROM for kunst og arkitektur, Oslo (Norway)
- Year of composition: 2008
- Other creator(s): Birger Sevaldson
- Cycle: The Barely Project
- Form: installation
Gentle Sediment (Barely: part-3)
Gentle Sediment (Barely
[xii-09]
Gentle Sediment (Barely
Premiere
- June 4, 2008, Synthèse 2008
: Électroac 4, Palais Jacques-Cœur, Bourges (Cher, France)
- Year of composition: 2008
- Cycle: The Barely Project
- Duration: 9:35
- Instrumentation: fixed medium
- Publisher(s): Ymx média
- ISRC: CAD501010217
Rhizaria (Barely: part-4)
In Rhizaria (Barely
[xii-09]
Rhizaria (Barely
Premiere
- December 7, 2008, Tanja Orning, cello
; Natasha Barrett, processing • Electric Audio Unit Kick-Off Festival: Concert, Det Åpne Teater, Oslo (Norway)
About this sound recording
This version was recorded at the Notam (Norwegian network for Technology, Acoustics and Music) in Oslo (Norway) in May 2009 and mixed in the composer’s studio in June 2009.
- Year of composition: 2007-08
- Cycle: The Barely Project
- Duration: 12:54
- Instrumentation: cello and processing
- Publisher(s): Ymx média
- ISRC: CAD501010216
