BRIAN AND RYAN

For the past several years, our collaboration has been about giving up our individual authorship to nurture a persona known as Brian and Ryan. We originally developed the “Sound Collection Helmets” as a literal means to collect the sounds of a city. As our work on this venture proceeded, it evolved into finding both noise and stories that could represent a place.

Our black helmets are equipped to pick up sounds at both long and short ranges. The large receiving dishes attached to the helmets have sensitive microphones inside them that allow us to record conversations and the general ambient noise of the city. And since we both record the same sounds from different angles and directions, it adds an unsettling echo effect to the final recordings: our way of creating a multiple simulacrum.

In October of 2017, we were given the opportunity to test the helmets at the San Diego Art Institute’s Project Space. This satellite space is used for experimental short-run shows, and it is next to a large urban plaza. As we moved through the outdoor space collecting sound, it became clear that people wanted to interact and understand what we were doing. As they engaged us, they also felt compelled to share personal stories. It was at this point we realized that the stories could be interwoven with the metropolitan sounds to create a clearer depiction of the city.

In November of 2017, we took the helmets to the AiOP (Art in Odd Places) Noise exhibition and spent three days at the festival roaming downtown Orlando, Florida along Orange Avenue. This area of the city contained an interesting cross-mix of locals. We encouraged those pedestrians to engage us in conversation and asked them to share a story about their life in Orlando. Stories were long, short, personal, generic, and everything in between. As we collected the conversations, other sounds from the city cross pollinated the recordings and added unanticipated layers to our soundtrack. Each conversation was recorded from two directions and added to our database. It is our intention to continue this project across the country in several cities and create a large database of conversations mixed with the sound of the city that can distinctively represent each of these places.