Since 2000, I have been working in various ways with small sounds scavenged from media sources, using homemade software to collect audio which falls below a very low threshold. This process is applied in two short pieces which derive from speeches of George W. Bush and a longer piece which was originally created as a sound installation.

“2 minutes and 50 seconds silence (for the USA)” employs Bush’s speech of March 17, 2003, delivered in the White House, in which he gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to get out of town.

“A Little Bird Told Me” employs an awkward and hurried press conference convened on the south lawn of White House on June 6, 2004, in which Bush announced the resignation of the director of the CIA, George Tenet – while a bird chirped continuously in a nearby tree.

“Auricle” was conceived as a site-specific sound installation for Norwich Cathedral (UK) and is a reduction of a week’s worth of the daily Church of England services broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

(Auricle.aif is available on Public DVD) • Download Auricle notes (pdf)