at PLACE Built Environment Centre, Belfast
April 2019
Project partially funded by Arts Council NI

Familiar Places: The Green Drones offers audiences a new way in which to engage with the sonic textures, timbres, rhythms and dynamics of Belfast. Familiar Places: The Green Drones is an iteration of X Marks the Spot, a longer-term durational and site-oriented project. Each iteration attempts to transform sound mapping into a shared, alternative experience of Belfast.

X Marks the Spot invited participants to navigate the city by listening out for the continuous sounds made up of varying frequencies (‘drones’) produced by a number of the city’s telecommunication boxes. Participants eavesdropped on the liminal sounds uncovered through an otherwise everyday object, challenging the often utilitarian and dominant ways that one usually navigates the city.

The drones are an integral part of X Marks the Spot, but seven of the tagged boxes recently fell silent and no longer produce their continuous sound. Instead of being removed from the project these boxes are acknowledged as part of the flow and life-cycle of the city, highlighted in white on the map.

This iteration includes as a series of photographs and graphic elements in close dialogue with a single 20 minutes composition (ambisonics), which documents Belfast through time, with all locations intertwined.