ABERDEEN HUMMING PUBLIC SOUND INSTALLATION
Do you have a song that reminds you of your childhood?
Yes.
Could you hum it for me?
LISTEN TO ABERDEEN HUMMING
This is a stereo reduction of Aberdeen Humming, which is in octophonic. A total duration of the piece is about 30 minutes and consists of several sections. Use your headphones if possible.
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ABOUT THE PROJECT
Introduction to the project
Aberdeen Humming, created by Suk-Jun Kim and supported by sound and Seventeen, Aberdeen's creative hub, is an audiovisual public installation that brings out the sense of place and of community through humming.
As a community project, it concerns collective memory through songs and uses humming as a mode of revealing such memories. Usually, we try to understand a place and its people through various scientific and sociological tools. But being a composer and sound artist, Kim feels that it is the sounds the place and its people make that tell us what the place is and who these people are—more importantly, how they have become what they are now. Kim has always been interested in the relationship between people and place and how people’s memory plays a role, and this installation is another attempt to examine it. Kim has previously created two other humming projects, In Tune, Out of Tune in Berlin in Germany, and the other in Silver City, New Mexico in the US.
Aberdeen Humming is trying to showcase hums from at least 400 to 500 people in Aberdeen by asking them to hum their childhood songs. The project, which runs from July to December, 2013, has two components: Humming Booth and Aberdeen Humming, the final sound installtion.
humming booth
July 5 - Aug. 18, 2013
Seventeen, Belmont St., Aberdeen, UK
humming booth is part of Aberdeen Humming. In the booth, visitors to Seventeen are asked to hum a song that would remind them of their childhood. The hums taken at the booth will be collated and used for Aberdeen Humming, which is projected to open in November.
humming booth is at Seventeen, Belmont St., Aberdeen, UK. Please come by and off your hum!
humming boooth has these three buttons with which you can interact with the system.
Francis is preparing for the booth.
humming booth with a wall-mounted screen. You can see three holes cut out for the buttons.
humming booth with the buttons installed on the shelf.
humming booth being painted in dark red by Suk-Jun Kim and Ross Whyte.
Thank you, Ross!
Ross is trying out the humming booth.
Humming is a personal, intimate act. Think about it. You usually hum for yourself or those whom you are very close with. In this sense, offering hums to others means that you are letting others enter your personal space.
A personal place for offering your hum
humming booth offers people in Aberdeen a personal place where they can offer their hums.
People can come into the booth and offer their hums any time.
Aberdeen Humming
14 - 30 November 2013
Seventeen, Belmont St., Aberdeen, UK
The final sound installation, Aberdeen Humming, is the culmination of the Aberdeen Humming Project. Aberdeen Humming uses not only the hums collected from humming booth, but also hums that the artist and his team have collected by meeting people in Aberdeen individually.
Images, sounds, and other documentations of the installation will be posted here soon. In the meanwhile, Download the exhibition post here.
The collected hums were used to ‘compose’ the final humming piece without any sound manipulation, except some fade-ins and outs as well as amplitude changes, which is then played back through eight speakers at a low volume. Aberdeen Humming invites you to come and listen to these hums. You might be able to recognise a few hums, and if you do, why don’t you hum along? Some of the hums were also gathered by Music and Communities students at the University of Aberdeen (Rebecca, Ben, Fiona, Laura, Tamara, Christine, and Yasmin)
ARTIST and SUPPORTERS
About the artist
Suk-Jun Kim is a sound artist whose main output is electroacoustic music and sound installation. His work mainly focuses on imaginal listening and place memory through sound. Kim had his first solo exhibition in Berlin, Germany in 2009-2010. He is currently collecting humming from people in Aberdeen for his public audiovisual installation, Aberdeen Humming. Kim is lecturer in Electroacoustic Music and Sound Art at the University of Aberdeen, UK.
Experience
Kim's work has received a number of international awards, including first prizes at Métamorphoses (Belgium: 2008), Concurso International de Música Electroacústica Såo Paulo (2007), and Bourges International Competition (2001); commissions from the 2006 World Cup in Germany (2006), Bourges commissions (2002 & 2006), SpACE-Net in UK (2007); a resident composer at Bourges (2004, 2007, 2009), VICC, Sweden (2007), Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida (2007), MacDowell Colony, New Hampshire (2008), Musiques & Recherches in Ohain, Belgium (2009), and Artists-in-Berlin, DAAD, Germany (2009). In 2011, Kim’s work has been published by DAAD and Kerher as a book/DVD titled Hasla, available on Amazon.
Suk-Jun Kim - composer and sound artist
Aberdeen Humming is Supported by
Aberdeen City Council
Creative Scotland
PRS for Music Foundation
Seventeen
sound festival
