Scanner: Surface Noise

12 - 14 November 1998
From St Paul's Cathedral to Big Ben and vice versa, London SW1 - EC4

Taking the sights and sounds of London and the nursery rhyme London Bridge is Falling Down as a starting point for a journey through the city, sound artist Scanner gathered audio samples and visual material as ingredients for three evenings of live sound.

Overlaying a map with the sheet music for London Bridge is Falling Down, Scanner walked through London and made audio recordings on a Digital Audio Tape machine and took digital photographs at the points where the musical notes fell on the map. The visual images were fed into a computer and translated into sound which Scanner mixed live with the DAT recordings. This live performance took place 6 times an evening for three days with the audience retracing Scanner's original walk from a  Routemaster bus travelling between Big Ben and St Paul's Cathedral.

Surface Noise was the first in a series of projects entitled ‘INNERCity’ in which artists, writers and thinkers were invited to react to the city of London. It was also Scanner's first project with Artangel and he has since collaborated on a photography project NightJam and provided sound design for Sukhdev Sandhu's Night Haunts, both Artangel commissions.

Presented with the support of the National Lottery through the A4E scheme administered by the Arts Council of England. This project was supported by Arts Council England, Artangel International Circle, Special Angels and The Company of Angels

Funders and Collaborators