From The River’s Mouth (2025)
From the River’s Mouth is a sound installation created during my artist residency at the University of Salford’s Acoustics Laboratories, in partnership with From The Other and the University of Salford Art Collection. Premiered at Sounds from the Other City 2025, the work explores the River Irwell through spatialised sound, moving image, and field recordings, and will join the University’s permanent art collection.
The installation is presented across three distinct rooms in the labatories, each utilising different acoustic environments and technology:
— In the Shallows (anechoic chamber) is composed entirely of underwater recordings captured with hydrophones submerged in the Irwell. Projected through a 12-channel speaker array in the total silence of the chamber, this room offers an intimate listening experience—revealing the river’s hidden, subaquatic world - from the loud, ever-present hum of the city below the surface to the crackling, hissing, and popping effervescence of life in the Kersal Wetlands.
— At the River’s Edge (listening room) shifts from underwater to the surface of the river. Using a 112-channel Wave Field Synthesis rig and 8 additional spatialised channels, this room presents field recordings and footage captured along the river’s banks.
— Onflow (reverberation room) features 7-channel audio paired with cymatic water projections. In this space, sound frequencies vibrate the water, generating dynamic, real-time patterns that are synchronised with the audio.
❋ Read Fiona Brehony’s reflections on the work, here.