Artist Statement
My work centres on articulating our relationships with each other and the spaces we move through using sound. I am particularly interested in the way sound contours our experiences of the world, how we deploy it to connect, occupy, immerse and remove ourselves from locations, events and each other.
I am a field recordist and this practice of recording the sounds in public spaces informs all of my work. Everything from vibrations caused by cars and footfalls, to indistinct murmurs, music in public space, and the roar of distant sporting events has found its way into my compositions. In its variety, layers and obscurations, the ways in which we together create our soundscape continues to inspire me.
As part of this interest I have recently developed a practice involving the creation of sonic transects. These projects involve the tracing of a trajectory in sound, and offer an experience of some of the ways we move through the world.
Bio
Kate Carr’s practice explores the encounters, textures and technologies entangled with field recording using movement, objects and experimental recording techniques. She creates intimate, delicate and hybrid soundworlds which centre the interactions and collectivity which generate soundscapes. She works across composition, performance and installation. Everything from vibrations caused by cars and footfalls, to overheard murmurs, public speeches, music in public space, and the roar of distant sporting events has found its way into her compositions, and live performances. Inspired by the layers, minglings and silences in our collective soundscapes, Carr is interested in composing works probe the soundscape for clues as to how we negotiate living together. She is particularly focused on hybrid soundscapes: where forest meets town, nuclear power plant meets wetland, booming car stereo meets residential street.
In her live work she is increasingly examining some of the ambiguities of field recording, pursuing a practice which blurs live foley work with field recording techniques. As such her instruments move from scientific rockers, massage guns, bird horns, frog rattles, watering cans to bug clickers in compositions which aim to trouble the associations of authenticity often attached to field recording, versus the sonic fictions of foley work.
In 2022 Carr also began composing and performing as part of the duo RUBBISH MUSIC with Iain Chambers where the pair build soundscapes from discarded objects. This live work has seen Carr and Chambers performing with shampoo bottles, toilet plungers, oven grills and rusty saucepans.
Her most recent commissions include: a new composition for The Coventry Biennial and the development of a live performance for Listening to Place at the Barbican. She has also been commissioned to produce new work for Late Junction and The Verb on BBC radio 3, and been interviewed on BBC radio 6, The World Service and BBC radio 3. In print her work has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Telegraph, Pitchfork and The Wire among other publications.
Recent live performances in 2022 in addition to the Barbican include Oscillations Festival (Brussels), Sonic Territories (Vienna) and Supernormal in the UK. Other notable lives performances include Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, Instants Chavires (Paris) AB Salon (Brussels) and The Long Now at Kraftwerk (Berlin).
As part of her practice Carr also runs the sound art imprint Flaming Pines. She has also founded the sound art duo RUBBISH MUSIC with Iain Chambers. Her music can be found on the labels Helen Scarsdale (US), Hasana Editions (Indonesia), Rivertones (UK), Longform Editions (Australia) Galaverna (Italy) as well as Flaming Pines. Carr is Australian, and lives in London.
Photo: Performing at Cafe Oto by Naomi Morlan.