Three Immersive, Totally Free Unsound Experiences To Get Involved With

By David Sefton co-artistic director of Unsound Adelaide

One of the greatest pleasures about the expansion of Unsound Adelaide into a fully-fledged stand-alone festival has been the capacity to introduce various new elements to the Adelaide and Australian audience: a fully-programmed late club, an extensive talks programme and our first ever sound art exhibition.

Thanks to the support and generosity of the Adelaide Botanic Garden, Unsound Adelaide will showcase three immersive installation pieces to be placed around the Bicentennial Greenhouse, in this lush, tropical setting, free and open for the whole of the Unsound weekend. All the works are Australian premieres, one of them is an Unsound co-commission.

The range of work on offer is particularly gratifying in that it shows what an extraordinarily wide field this world encompasses and the range of artists working in it. From the highly distinctive sound world of Leyland Kirby (aka The Caretaker) to the award-winning work of environmental sound artist Chris Watson via the "synthetic field recordings" of Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement - the artist better known as Prurient - the sonic possibilities and variety of experiences represented speaks to a fascinating and expanding universe.

Altogether, what we've created for Unsound Adelaide is something special - and something only to be experienced across this weekend and in this extraordinary setting.

Free Unsound Adelaide sound installations – at the Adelaide Botanic Garden

Leyland Kirby

Leyland Kirby, adapting a piece commissioned by The Museum of Water and heard in any form outside of that venue for the first time, has created a sonic environment that, in his own words, allows the listener to “escape the world of fools on land by being immersed in the sounds of deep waters.” An immersive deep sea listening environment that is unmistakably the work of Leyland Kirby but offers the listener an opportunity to hear Kirby in a very different context.

Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement – Shield Ferns/Brown Pine Magic

Shield Ferns/ Brown Pine Magic is a new commission from Dominick Fernow aka Vatican Shadow aka Prurient - a synthetic field recording commissioned by Unsound Kraków and Unsound Adelaide specifically for installation in this lush greenhouse setting. Fernow's work skews to the darker side of immersive field recordings and will provide the listener with yet another entirely different sonic experience.

Chris Watson

Chris Watson is one of the most celebrated and lauded environmental sound artists in the world today. Having begun his career in the 70s as one of the founding members of cult legends Cabaret Voltaire, Chris struck off on his own to become a nature and field recording specialist. "Putting the microphone where the ears can't go" is how he (modestly) describes his own work. Travelling the world to capture sounds of nature rarely heard by humans, he takes the raw material of these field recordings and turns them into unique listening experiences.

Head to Unsound Adelaide's website for more details.