The premise of the installation is very simple: multiple locations are recorded simultaneously and played back across a multiple-speaker system, which is placed in a circle, giving a 'God's ear perspective' of the world.
The result is that we hear many points simultaneously, so for example, if we have simultaneous recordings of a street, we hear cars, people, birds etc, moving around the circle of speakers at different speeds.
The Simultaneity Project
The word 'Simultaneity' refers to events occuring at the same time in different places
The project entails creating a multiple-speaker installation suitable for galleries and public spaces
A world-wide simultaneous recording was made on December 16th 2004 from 6.50 - 7.10 pm GMT which included more than 40 people in 23 countries - participants were asked to record bells, clocks, wristwatches, strking the hour - results included huskies in the Yukon, clock shops in San Francisco, church bells in London, France, Germany, train anouncements in Northern Ireland, dawn choruses from New Zealand, motorbikes and Ragas from Mumbai and many more.
The first Simultaneity recording was made in New York City, with the help of Caryn Havlik and a team of volunteers from WNYC radio (see below) on a freezing saturday in November 2004.
Sites around the southern end of Central Park (in the background of main picture) were mapped and recorded simultaneously in 6 locations each with stereo microphones.
Music excerpts: