Sonia Leber and David Chesworth
The Master's Voice, 2001-ongoing

Installation in City Walk, Canberra
Stainless steel grids, Sensors, 8 Loudspeakers, 2 Channels

listen to excerpt (2')

The Master’s Voice is Canberra’s first permanent soundscape artwork, commissioned by ACT Government Public Art Program. It was created by artists Sonia Leber and David Chesworth in association with H2o architects.

A low wall snakes along the edge of a small park at the eastern end of City Walk, and sounds emanate from a rhythmic series of stainless steel grids inserted into the wall and ground.

When people walk past, they trigger the unexpected real-world sounds of people talking to animals, but with the sounds of the animals edited out, the voices seem to be calling out directly to the passersby: beckoning, controlling, coaxing. The addressee has been changed and visitors find themselves implicated in the work.

The artists are interested in the juxtaposition of these personalised, intimate vocalisations in an urban, public space surrounded by commercial and government buildings. In this place – called ‘Civic’ no less – the work is not so much about the nature of the park but about the relationship of ‘citizens’ to their ‘civic spaces’.

The Master’s Voice includes a diversity of communication techniques recorded at a variety of locations including farms, parks, training schools, zoos, veterinary practices and animal shows.

The work can be heard daily during daylight hours at the eastern end of City Walk in Canberra, near corner of Akuna Street.

The work was installed at Adelaide University in March 2002 as part of the analogue2digital conference.



NAWIC 2002 Award for Outstanding Achievement in Design

"Using the doggerel and playful name-calling of people talking to their pets...The Master's Voice appears to follow listeners as they walk along a wall in Canberra: the setting in the national capital perhaps inviting questions about who is the master and who is on the leash."
Matthew Westwood, The Australian, August 04, 2005.

"The work ... trips up passers-by, induces double-takes, private puzzled glances ...
It addresses us directly...these calls are full of questions, invitations to conversation,
spaces for exchange; there's this urge for an interchange...

"The 'sensible' inflections of speech get stretched into wild glisses and warbling melisma; syllables shorten into abstract sonic punctuation... these candid, charged
interspecies moments emerge from inconspicuous slots in a mallscape; their
sonic shapes stand out against the 'public' murmur of social verbosity."
Mitchell Whitelaw, RealTime No.46, Sydney, December 2001


HEY!
Stop it!
Tell me, tell me!

Who’s That?
Can you sit down?
Listen to me!

Don’t be so slack!
Stay...steady!
Can you TALK?

Sit!
Good boy - walk on!

What’s this?

Look at the size of that tummy!
You're not fitting in any more.

There's gonna be alot of waddling going on.

What are you doing?

Don’t be frightened!

Whoa! WHOA!
Steady!

Stand STILL!
HEY, what’s the matter with you today?


Audio Elements

Eight loudspeakers are positioned at intervals at a low height along the wall, corresponding to eight of the stainless steel inserts. By using multiple loudspeakers, the overall volume is kept quite low. The aim is to provide an intimate, close-proximity listening experience for pedestrians near the wall, with the volume falling away as people move away from the wall.

The system uses two digital soundstores to deliver sound to eight individual weather-resistant loudspeakers housed within the wall behind stainless steel panels. Two motion sensors allow the work to be triggered by the movement of people approaching the wall.

The soundscape operates daily during daylight hours. It is only heard when sensors are triggered by visitors walking past the wall; otherwise the system is silent, awaiting new passersby.


Visual Elements

The stainless steel inserts are flush-mounted in rhythmic stages along the wall and pathway, responding to the interplay of existing elements: the curvature of the wall and pathway, and the change in level between the pathway and walkway on either side of the wall. The rhythmic spacing of the inserts along the wall accompanies the journey of the pedestrians along the path, further emphasising the curvature of the wall.

The top of the stainless steel inserts sets up a horizontal datum, which loosely corresponds to the level of the upper walkway. The folded junction in the inserts between the wall and ground articulates the change in level.

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