Text Sound Art

Text-Sound-Art is a platform where sound artists respond to poems. Each piece is a collaboration between a sound artist and a poet. The voice comes first, and music, foley and spatial composition support it.

The first series, Then Before (2020), set three poems by Shamshad Khan, Jack Underwood and Alice Kemp in sound composed by Wajid Yaseen. The voices were recorded with the poets, and every element was placed in space. The pieces were written for an 8-speaker cube, the same layout used in Ear Cinema. The series was planned as a multichannel listening installation. Covid closed venues, so it was presented online as a live deep listening session on 12 November 2020. Binaural versions are available as videos; listen on headphones.

The project works to six principles. Three of them set its character:

• the voice leads, and music and sound design support it
• every element of the music has its own position in space
• spatial movement stays understated unless the text calls for more