The St. James Theatre Resonance Project: (a sonic phenomenology of space and place)

Abstract

This discussion of space and place begins with an appraisal of how these terms are defined. It then considers how the emergence of each term in language reveals something about its ontological and experiential nature, analysing and comparing space in three modes before introducing the concept of place. Through this discussion I observe how definitions of space and place hint at their entanglement with the intent to articulate space’s dialectical interrelation with place. In the following section, I reflect on the work of geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, whose writing on spatial experience, and on the relation of place to space has informed my own. Of particular interest is the way Tuan describes places as “centers of value” which afford undifferentiated, “blurred” space the structure required if it is to be meaningfully experienced. I compare Tuan's discussion of space and the body to themes present in the phenomenological philosophies of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. To unpack the political stakes which lurk amidst the tension between space and place, I then explore relevant themes present in the works of architectural theorist, Christian Norberg-Schulz, and urban planner, Kevin Lynch, whose works emphasise the value of imageability in spatial experience. 2 Following this, I anaylse space and place as appear to us in lived experience, defining several characteristics in relation to movement and fixity. I discuss the origins of these qualities with reference to the figure/ground relation of space/place alluded to by Norberg-Schulz and Lynch, attempting to understand the co-dependence of the two terms in greater detail. I eventually arrive at a point where textual research is no longer 1 effective. From this point onward my investigation continues in a more poetic manner with the aim of teasing out points of departure, return and interrelation. With hindsight, arriving at this point seems inevitable, and it marks where my thinking about the tangled relation of space to place carries over into an artistic methodology informed by psychoacoustic research and the phenomenological method. My speculative, poetic conclusions are reapplied throughout an evaluation of my recording and installation work, The St. James Theatre Resonance Project. In describing the relationship between my written and applied research, I consider how our aural faculties provide us with an auditory spatial awareness, and offer a theoretical and historical lens through which the applied component of this project can be understood. Finally, I discuss the processes and considerations which inform and constitute my art practice, describing the recording process enacted at the St. James Theatre, the subsequent editing process, and the considerations which informed my installation at Elam's Projectspace Gallery with reference to the themes of project as a whole.