Broadway Hertz was commissioned by Radiatorfor the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham.
The initial idea was to use the building’s plumbing to ‘broadcast’ sound around the building, but the plumbing systemdid not prove cooperative. The back up idea was to use the venue’s electrical ring mains to ‘broadcast’ soundusing old style baby monitors, but the physics didn’t work. The tirtiary idea was to mic-up a range of spaces in the buildingbring these sources together and remix the building’s sound.
Using an enormous amount of microphone cable and a variety of microphones we brought sound from the Bar, the Kitchen,the lift, the gents toilets, the box office, the kitchen, the foyer and the cinemas together in a smallcupboard under the stairs.
Performers, working in relays, created live mixes of the building’s sounds. Visitiors were invited into thelisten and, if they were interested, perform their own mix. On the walls, plans of the building were annotatedwith fragments of conversation overheard during this ‘bugging’ exercise.
From The Original Wall Text
We’ve yet to make BROADWAY HERTZ and already the building has trashed two perfectlybeautiful ideas. First the plumbing repulsed our attempts to turn it into a sound system, then the electrics refused to act as speaker cables. We’d arrogantly thought we’d ‘bring the building to life’. Now we realise it always was alive. We should have listened more carefuly before we tried to impose our ideas upon it.
BROADWAY HERTZ is an amateur attempt at espionage. It is stab at electronic stethoscopy. It is a pitch at remixing a building.We hope you like the sound of it.
Vaguely Remembered
Broadway Hertz installed by Mark Anderson, Craig Stephens and James Yarker
Mixing by: Mark Anderson, Sarah Archdeacon, Helen Ingham, Jake Oldershaw.
Commissioned by Radiator.
Photography: Ed Dimsdale
Tour dates
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2nd Week May, 2002 Broadway Cinema, Nottingham
