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Installation on Shoemaker's Bridge, Ljubljana, Slovenia
June 2003
6 channel audio, 12 speakers, programmed sound files
listen to excerpt (4')
5000 Calls Sydney - 5000 Calls Cardiff
About the Work
Shoemaker's Bridge (1932) in Ljubljana provided an altogether
different setting for 5000 Calls. It forms part
of architect Joze Plecnik’s river axis through the centre of Ljubljana,
standing on the site of a former bridge on which butchers and later
shoemakers had their shops.
Shoemaker’s Bridge is one of a sequence of key
architectural events designed by Plecnik to be encountered on foot along
the banks of the Ljubljanica River, a testament to Plecnik’s privileging
of the pedestrian.
Unusually wide, the historic footbridge functions as a central piazza
and meeting place over the river, right in the heart of the city.
We utilised the surrounding neoclassical columns as twelve fixed points
of sound, and carefully configured a version of 5000 Calls specifically
for this site.
Responses
'Extraordinarily successful. The effect is arresting, literally stopping
passers-by
in their tracks...
'In Ljubljana, I saw a man tap his hasty companion on the shoulder,
cupping the other hand to his ear to draw attention to the soundscape…precipitating
a lively five-minute debate… Other passersby stayed over an hour,
smoking silently in the sun.'
Bleddyn Butcher, The Wire, London, July 2003
Acknowledgements
Commissioned by Cankarjev Dom Arts Centre, with support from Arts Victoria
Find out more about the concept and sound sources in connection with
the original installation in Sydney, or see another setting of the work
in Cardiff.
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