Room for sound

_about

Room for Sound was a 10-day residency inside the Willem de Kooning Academy for students, teachers and other staff of the WDKA and the PZI. The room was used to either start a new artistic project or work on an existing one. In exchange for the room, the resident was asked to record a sound a day: this could range from an in-depth talk about the work to a short observational soundscape. The sounds were uploaded daily to the mywdka homepage so that the academy community could tune in to what’s happening inside the Room for Sound.

During the academic year 2022-2023, the residency welcomed 14 bachelor and master students who used the opportunity to work on their current research and elaborate on their work using the medium of sound. For some of them, it was a brand new media, for others - a moment to dive deeper into their interest in the audio format.

What was especially precious for the residents this year, was the chance to have their own place to work at the academy. The room is not a sound studio, but a working space which each one of them could decorate and transform the way they needed it. Most of them also shared that the invitation to create and publish one sound per day was a helpful push and constraint not to get lost into the endless opportunities out there.

The Room for Sound became of home of more than 120 sonic pieces and accommodated plants, illustrations, collective murals, couches, cushions, laughs and conversations. To wrap up the residency, I made an audio mix with selected snippets by the residents.

_residency outcome

▶▶ Listen to the final sound publication with selected snippets from the residencies here.

_care-taking responsibilities

the website archived all of the sonic pieces created by the residents

The job of care-taking of the residency included several ongoing tasks:

▲ selection of residents (used python's random generator for more fair selection)
▲ welcome and introduction of the residency's rules and opportunities to the residents
▲ care of the physical room, located in the Willem de Kooning academy building
▲ care of materials and equipment for the residency (technical, materials, etc)
▲ communication (managing instagram account, graphic design of communication materials - digital and printed)
▲ archive (managing the website of the residency, on wordpress)
▲ collaboration with the management of the academy
▲ admin work (budgeting, reporting expenses, reimbursement forms etc)
▲ tuition (tutorials for residents to work with sound editing programmes, or conceptual)