Steve Law: Urbania

Abstract

Urbania is an aural collage, combining the soundscapes of two modern yet very different cities, Melbourne and Hong Kong. I have spent a lot of time walking alone about the city of Melbourne over the past two years, making recordings onto a portable mini-disc recorder (to be used in a piece I am planning). I happened to be held over in Hong Kong at the end of 1995, and spent a very disoriented day wandering about, again with my mini-disc recorder. On returning to Melbourne I imagined what it might feel like for someone from Hong Kong (or any other city for that matter) to be alone in my home city for the first time. Urbania attempts to capture that feeling of disorientation and uncertainty by placing the listener in a surreal cityscape, composed from the juxtaposition of the sounds from Hong Kong and Melbourne. The raw mini-disc recordings were sorted through and edited, then further processed and laid out against a lattice of synthetic sounds (which were generated using additive, subtractive and formant synthesis). The intention of the composition is to take the listeneron an unsettling journey, through locations simultaneously familiar and disorienting.