Five Sound Questions to Alison Ballard

Alison Ballard works with sound, space and the moving image, exploring the relationships between those media.

 

“Exploring the physical effects of sound upon the listener, she looks at ways in which architecture can influence the listening experience and how spaces can be used as a tool or an instrument and not simply a setting.” 

For more information about Alison and her work, visit her website: www.alisonballard.com.

 

1. What sound from your childhood made the most impression on you? 

As a teenager I suffered from insomnia and I used to lay awake at night listening to a nightingale sing. It returned year after year and remains today the sweetest nightingale I have ever heard. I never spoke about it at the time and I never tried to record it’s song. I never felt like it was meant to be heard as a recording, it was something that needed to be experienced first-hand.

2. How do you listen to the world around you?

At the moment I listen to the world as though it were one continual hearing test. For the last 18 months I have suffered from reduced hearing  and a feeling of pressure in my left ear caused by an allergic reaction. Whilst I can still hear within a ‘normal’ hearing range I have lost the ability to hear some lower frequencies and my ear doesn’t always respond to sounds in the way that it should. I recently went to an Alvin Lucier performance and effectively missed the whole experience because my left ear wasn’t responding to the different frequencies properly.

 

My hearing subtly changes from day to day. Some days I barely notice a difference at all whilst on other days I have so much pressure in my left hear I struggle to ignore it and almost stop listening to the world around me all together because I am so distracted. I am constantly judging and assessing what I can and can’t hear and how my ears are responding.

In some ways it’s an excellent research project.

3. Which place in the world do you favor for its sound?

Any enclosed resonant spaces. I’m fascinated by the acoustics of architecture.

4. How could we make sound improve our lives?

By making time for a little more silence and by listening to Birdsong Radio. Unless of course you live in the countryside, then listening to bird song on the radio would be a little bit strange.

5. What sound would you like to wake up to?

The nightingale.

 

Also read the answers of other artists in the Five Sound Questions section.