duo with the city
xin cheng and ian-john hutchinson
3 - 30 July 2009

        General atotal sound world -
the meeting, on an iron strip, of the glass collector and a
vacuum,...washing water, hohokkyo...
 Let`s duet, let`s duo.

from ian-john:

Textural.

On durations wire
The voices barb is set.
A voice as blind as a voice
bound within a unison of solitude.

from xin's emails, selected by ian-john:

Listening to how people move and the sounds they make. Each person has a particular pattern. I listen to the sounds coming down the driveway to tell if it was my friend or my neighbour.

I stayed in the Jail House <http://www.jail.co.nz/> on Saturday night,

Their resin toilet seats have barbed wired embedded in them- most likely added by the hostel renovators. It's quite a strange experience staying in a former jail, almost monastic. The acoustics are especially eerie- all foot steps get amplified on the metal stairs, but then you step on the grey carpet and it is completely quiet again.

When I was young I lived in a tall building. Every hour I'd hear trumpet played by the army in the distance, and some times collapsing noises of the mountains being bombed  for minerals. When we went to Norway we noticed an absence of bird songs.

Mountains and forests.

I've been collecting rocks on my trips, limestone, river rocks, scoria, also some vinyl printed like stone slabs.