The Office for Common Sound

The NCAD Gallery is delighted to present The Office for Common Sound (OCS), a nomadic project space devoted to researching the role of sound within different communities initiated and managed by the artist Sven Anderson. The OCS occupies street-front properties for durations ranging between two weeks to two months, using this concise timeframe to generate specific outputs in response to its surroundings, through methods developed in cooperation with a range of participants.

The OCS provides a public platform for researching the sound of a particular place, for gathering different perspectives about this sound, and for working together to investigate how these processes might contribute to the design and planning of the public realm. The OCS establishes open interfaces with people of all backgrounds and ages including students, residents, business owners, community groups, and visiting specialists. It evolves through workshops, sound walks, reading groups, field recordings, listening sessions, performances, mapping exercises, interviews, and surveys. The OCS organises and presents these forms as they emerge, questioning the performative (and public) possibilities of the office as an ambiguously defined space of production.

The OCS is open to anyone with an interest in discussing the local sound environment. It evolves through activities including: Workshops, Sound walks, Reading groups, Field recordings, Listening sessions, Performances, Mapping, exercises, Interviews, Surveys. The OCS organises and presents these forms as they emerge, questioning the performative (and public) possibilities of the office as an ambiguously defined space of production. 

The OCS at NCAD is developed in collaboration with Colm Keady-Tabbal, Mateja Šmic, Christopher Steenson, and others TBC. The OCS is open to anyone with an interest in discussing the local sound environment. To schedule a meeting, please contact the OCS at: theofficeforcommonsound@gmail.com
 
The current instance of the OCS is supported by The NCAD Gallery and The Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media (GradCAM) at TU Dublin. The first instance of the OCS took place in Bray, County Wicklow in 2016, and was supported within the Strategic Arts Projects initiative by The Wicklow County Arts Office, Wicklow County Council, Mermaid Arts Centre and The Arts Council.


The Office for Common Sound

E: theofficeforcommonsound@gmail.com   W: http://office.minorarchitecture.org/    www.facebook.com/theofficeforcommonsound    www.twitter.com/thecommonsound

 

Artist Biographical Information
Sven Anderson (b. 1977) is an artist working between Ireland and the US since 2001. Anderson's practice operates through installations and performances that respond to details of the built environment and fragments of local histories to suggest emergent, site-specific forms. His projects incorporate artist placements, shared authorship and long-term collaborations, often converging on systems articulated in public space. Anderson's public artworks The Manual for Acoustic Planning and Urban Sound Design (2013) and The Office for Common Sound (2016) probe the potential of the artist as urban planner and municipal resource. His permanent sound installation Continuous Drift (2015) explores new modes of curating sound in the public realm, presenting works from over 30 artists in an active city square. Anderson’s proposal for the UK Holocaust Memorial International Design Competition developed in collaboration with Heneghan Peng Architects was awarded honourable mention (2018). Recent exhibitions include A Visibility Matrix (with Gerard Byrne; Void, Derry, 2019; Secession, Austria, 2019; Le Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse, 2018; The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, 2018), and Field Recording (Rua Red, Tallaght, 2018). Anderson is pursuing a PhD at the Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media (GradCAM) at TU Dublin. He convenes the course Vibrant Forms: Reconsidering the Built Environment Through Sound at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), and has delivered presentations on sound, architecture, and urbanism at conferences, universities, and design institutions around the world. http://www.svenanderson.net/