Auckland Museum has inspired artists to record soundtracks for its galleries, reports Scott Kara
Don't get Rosy Parlane wrong, he has great respect for the soldiers who died at war. It's just that when the Auckland musician was coming up with a piece of music for Auckland Museum's World War II Hall of Memories, he had a different take on the idea of remembrance.
He wrote his six-minute piece, entitled Dawn, for those who were left behind.
"One of things that struck me when I went in there was, obviously the walls and walls of names of soldiers who died, but how many names there are with the same surname, how many families, and that amazing stained glass window with the women, children, and elderly who were left behind," says Parlane who spent a lot of time "absorbing the room" before writing the track for the museum's new project, Sonic Museum.
As you wander through the Hall of Memories - a long, marble gallery on the top floor of the building - and listen to his static yet poignant piece, you find yourself looking for your family name, the names of family friends, and others you might recognise. At one end of the hall there are blank marble panels with the inscription "Let these panels never be filled" and lining the walls are cabinets full of photos of young soldiers with captions like "Died of wounds" and "Killed in action".
"They were just babies ... 18, 19-year-olds," says Parlane. "So I really wanted to make it about the impact it had on those who didn't go to war. To outlive your children must be one of the worst things you can go through."
Sonic Museum will be launched on May 7 when visitors to the museum will be able to listen to the tracks on a special headphones as they wander around.
You can also download the tracks from the website sonicmuseum.co.nz - just like an album - and listen to them on your personal music player.
The nine musicians involved come from diverse musical fields and include Parlane, other experimental musicians like Phil Dadson and Richard Francis, classical composer Chris Adams, and popular artists Tiki Taane, Nathan Haines, and Don McGlashan (see sidebar).
Their brief was to come up with a new musical work inspired by a gallery of their choice.
Along with other recent projects, like the LATE series of concerts and panel discussions, Sonic Museum is about attracting new audiences, giving regular visitors a new way of experiencing the exhibits, expanding the function of the museum, and allowing the existing content to be interpreted in different ways.
"Music alters your experience of the world," says Sonic Museum developer Amanda White. "You see people all over the place with their iPods. Everybody takes their music everywhere with them and you see something differently when you are listening to music - that's what's at the core of what we're doing here."
And on a more practical level listening to music also paces people and slows them down as they wander through the museum.
Taane, whose chart-topping music blends dub, dance, pop and traditional Maori music, chose the Maori Court.
However, he had more than just the exhibition space for inspiration. He had access to the museum's vast collection of taonga puoro (traditional Maori instruments) and spent last Sunday in the bowels of the museum trying out instruments and recording them for use in his piece.
"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to go in there and record and play some of these old taonga puoro. I'm blowing these things that are possibly human arms and legs made into flutes, and some of them just wouldn't play, and it was like, 'Okay, you don't want to be played'. Some of them are centuries old, and some of them probably haven't been played for a very long time. It's an honour."
The foundation for his piece is the song Tainui Waka, the last track off his debut solo album Past, Present, Future.
"It's got this real National Geographic vibe about it," he laughs. "That's the sort of angle I wanted to take. I wanted something progressive, contemporary, and I thought about coming into the museum and using the instruments and recording them to that piece of music."
At around 14 minutes, the track will be an epic and takes the listener back in time to village life, with the tapping of moko being done, dogs barking, and sounds of children playing throughout. The second section has an ocean theme and it concludes with a colonial segment and warfare. But, says Taane, it ends on an enlightened note.
"It's not just something musical but atmospheric and about conjuring up life in a village 250 years ago," he says.
Don McGlashan takes us even further back in time with his track for the Origins Gallery which displays the geological origins of New Zealand over 600 million years.
"The idea that people can have their own personal soundtrack for a gallery is what really tickled me," says McGlashan, who was familiar with similar overseas projects such as cosmic jazz musician Sun Ra's composition for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.
"It slows people down a lot which is the main thing really because a place like a museum, if you go in there and rush through it on the way to the nice ham sandwiches, you miss a lot. It was a real challenge to try and come up with something that would slow people's pulses down so that they could have the space to reflect."
Which is exactly what McGlashan's piece succeeds in doing. It is arranged chronologically, starting with plate tectonics, moving through fossils and dinosaurs, and then onto birds.
Wandering through the exhibit, as the song slowly unfolds in my head, it was as if I was walking with the dinosaurs.
His composition also hones your attention span, meaning you read more of the information boards and ultimately stay in the gallery longer. I ended up in a part of the space I had never ventured into, where I came face-to-face with a giant penguin, sitting on a bulbous egg.
McGlashan visited the gallery twice: once to be taken through by curator John Early ("which was great because his specialty is insects and he told me someone had named a flightless wasp after me, and I think it's slightly gingery which is maybe what lent it to be called after me," he chuckles), and again with his 85-year-old dad who is a retired geologist and engineer.
"That was one of the reasons I wanted to do that gallery, because he used to tell me stories about the formation of rocks and going out to archaeological digs. It was good to see what parts he was interested in, like the video in the gallery which is about an amateur archaeologist and she was responsible for most of the findings of dinosaur bones in New Zealand. Most people don't know there were dinosaurs here but they were all over the place. Of course it wasn't New Zealand back then, it was part of a bigger continent.'
Similar to McGlashan, Parlane enjoys the idea of merging sound and space.
"I quite like the headphone thing, it's a nice approach because if you do a physical sound installation in a gallery it's almost invasive, whereas with headphones people can choose to take it and it's all consuming. You're definitely put in the zone."
And Taane reckons the project will appeal to a broad range of people, but especially to a younger generation who have music as a big part of their lifestyle.
"It's for them to put their headphones on, drift off into their own little worlds and hopefully have a sonic relationship with what's in the cabinets."
WHO'S CREATING AURAL HISTORY
Tiki Taane
Maori Court
Former Salmonella Dub turned hit solo artist who now incorporates dub, dance, pop, and traditional Maori instruments into his sound.
Don McGlashan
Origins Gallery
The writer of some of New Zealand's best known songs, including Don't Fight it Marsha, It's Bigger Than Both Of Us, Anchor Me, and Bathe In the River. Recently composed the score to Toa Fraser's film Dean Spanley.
Nathan Haines
Oceans Gallery
The jazz musician has crossed over into many realms of music, from drum'n'bass and house to most recently recording an album with the NZSO.
Phil Dadson
Ancient Worlds
Experimental composer and artist producing sound-based artworks that take the form of performances, videos, and installations.
Richard Francis (aka Eso Steel)
Land Gallery
Experimental composer and improviser whose work explores different techniques of sound generation focusing on field and environmental recordings.
Rachel Shearer
Volcanoes
While in all-girl avant-goth-rock group Queen Meanie Puss in the 90s she released an album on Flying Nun but now creates musical experiments, sound installations, and composes for film.
Chris Adams
World War I Sanctuary
Promising classical composer whose work includes a piece for four clarinets called The Liberation of Mr Norris.
Rosy Parlane
World War II Hall of Memories
Electronic musician whose soundscapes are made up of guitars, piano, samples and field recordings. Check out albums Iris and Jessamine. This week he performed at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of the Ether Festival 2009.
Tim Coster
Landmarks: International Design and Decorative Arts
Sound artist who uses field recordings and other found musical sounds to create audio releases, installations and performances.
LOWDOWN
What: Sonic Museum, where local musicians have composed new music inspired by certain galleries at Auckland Museum.
How to: Download all nine tracks from sonicmuseum.co.nz for $10. Or hire audioplayer and headphones at the museum for $10.
When: Launched May 7 to coincide with LATE 04, featuring music by Nathan Haines and a panel discussion about Do Clothes Really Make the Man (or Woman)?
