Single-channel video, two-channel audio, 2009

Quay Tones is a single-channel video, two-channel audio work commissioned for the exhibition Trading As… Hanse Art Project at the King’s Lynn Arts Centre, Norfolk, UK (12 Jul – 8 Aug 2009).

The work maps King’s Lynn’s history as a trading port, a member of the Hanseatic League of states that worked together to promote and protect trading routes in the Baltic and the North Sea during the Middle Ages.

The history and atmosphere of the maritime and trading areas of the town are captured in images that focus on fragments and details of architecture and scenery, weathered and worn by the processes of time and the elements.

This imagery is transformed through the use of digital errors and distortions that reflect the effects of entropy and degradation, and is accompanied by an electroacoustic composition that combines site-specific environmental sound with heavily processed recordings of baroque harpsichord tones, stretched and filtered to create deep washes of immersive textural sound.

It has also been shown at the BBC Norfolk Film Festival (Fusion at The Forum, Norwich, UK, 11 – 30 October 2010) and SoundImageSound VII (Conservatory of Music, University of the Pacific, Stockton, USA, 26 March 2010).