The Near


Audio | Stereo | 2020

curated by
Yeonu Ju

soundwalk & field recorded by
Yeji Gu, Sunyang Park, Yeonu Ju

sound mixed by
Yeji Gu, Sunyang Park, Keohyun Noh


supported by
Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Arts Council Korea and Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture

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The Near is an audio project that hears something close to audible sounds and alienated sounds. This project is focused on alienated sounds which people often do not recognize but audible sound.

COVID-19 has changed the sound of our everyday life.
Our daily lives have been changed by social distancing clarified what we are able to see or not, and what we are able to hear or not. This audio project focuses on the social regulations for COVID-19 and the way how the regulations affect our lives, and proposes a method of connection beyond specific places and times. The sound separated from an image will evoke the experience of a particular space and place, away from the visually dominated realm of everyday life.

Yeonu Ju, Yeji Gu, and Sunyang Park, who participated in the project, recorded sounds in the form of soundwalk and field recordings. We focused on the city's diverse rhythms and specific sounds from places where people gather or gathered, stay, and pass by while walking or crossing the city by public transportation.

The project consists of External Link and Internal Link. Each part consists of a number of audio defragments. The file name of each audio defragments displays information about the source of the sound, and can be heard through albums at Bandcamp.

External Link is a record of the soundscape changed by COVID-19. The first and second parts contain soundwalk in major park trails and downtown streets of Seoul, and the third part contains audio work which collected various kinds of COVID-19 related announcements that can be heard in our everyday life.

Internal Link covers a collection of sounds heard when staying indoors, which is scheduled to be conducted in 2021. The first part of Internal Link is a Beta Version of the audio output which is researched by the artists. The second part is a joint project that anyone can participate, regardless of physical distance and time difference. Those who want to participate in the project The Near should record the sound they listen while staying in their own spaces.

The Near can be found anywhere via Seoul in 2020 without restrictions. The project will be released until December 2021, and the contents of the participant interviews and the second part of Internal Link will be shown gradually. Moreover, audio pieces collected by the project will be later reconstructed and produced in a new form of audio work. The comparison between the first record and the second record which is processed sound will give us an opportunity to hear a sound that was considered to be inaudible and a new type of listening that can clearly recognize the boundaries of the sound.

©2024