Deeper Listening: SHHE's D Ý R A sound installation

“The longer you listen to certain sounds, you start to pick up these subtle intricacies, different rhythms and changes in the environment. It’s about making a plan but – like fishing – sometimes you go out and it’s incredibly active, and you hear exciting things, and then other times you’re there for hours and don’t get anything back. There’s something powerful about letting go of control and being open to what you might find.”

Dundee-based multihyphenate artist Su Shaw, who makes music under the moniker SHHE, is talking about her practice of collecting found sounds. Field recordings, if recent explorations into the technique are to be followed, are music, material and method. But what is missing from that assessment is experience, something more metaphysical and personal. That’s what imbues Shaw’s latest work, D Ý R A, an immersive sound installation at Summerhall throughout this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, part of this year's Made In Scotland programme.

Locating, harvesting and collecting field recordings has become a daily routine, says Shaw, but D Ý R A is a site-specific recreation of her trips to the Dýrafjörður fjord in the chilly Westfjords of Iceland, a place Shaw has returned to multiple times over the last few years to develop her artistic practice. It’s a place that evidently means a lot to her, and her relationship with the fjord has continued as her musical work has become increasingly honed and minimalist, from the more traditional structures of her work as Panda Su to the stripped-back electronica of her self-titled LP. D Ý R A – a spiritual companion to another sound installation that envelopes the outer strictures of the V&A in Dundee – deals in ambient soundscapes and musique concrète, and is inspired by sound spatialisation, the sonorous fjords, and Shaw’s time absorbing Pauline Oliveros’ writings on “deep listening” and reading Joachim-Ernst Berendt’s observations on how “listening begins with being silent.”

“The project was always about exploring a slightly different approach to making music and recording,” says Shaw. “And Iceland was perfect for that. I remember the first time I was sitting there with this place’s silence, feeling nervous initially because it was the first time I'd spent so much time somewhere it was so quiet, and it really got me thinking about how we perceive sound and the difference between hearing and listening. I became interested in exploring ways to sonically map the fjord.”

The uncertain atmosphere created by lockdown also contributed to D Ý R A’s current form. “Everything had a question mark over it. How did you tour a record now? I wasn't sure how to answer those questions. I started thinking about how I can feel part of a performance without physically being there. Installation has been a useful way of doing that.

“I think my ears became quite sensitive. You perceived sounds so much more easily when traffic was removed, and suddenly cities were a lot quieter. I found where I would go for a walk along the riverside, I used to quite easily be able to have a conversation with someone, and now I find it quite overwhelming. My listening became much more attuned to the sounds around us and how to use them, and that fed its way into this work.” 

Dyra, SHHE from Made in Scotland on Vimeo.

Shaw looked to make music from sounds closer to home too, informing the work now playing in the tunnels and archways of the exterior of the V&A, which uses hydrophonic recordings and other found sounds from the surrounding waterways and the nearby River Tay. The work is programmed to respond to changing conditions in real time. Inside the museum, compositions from legendary ambient musician Midori Takada play. Both works are the first time the institution has commissioned bespoke sound art for the space.

“There's so many other things happening in the city, sometimes it's hard to hear the sounds that are right there,” says Shaw. “And [at the V&A], there are already so many – this is just a way to bring those out, to encourage deeper listening to open up to what isn’t so obvious. And because it’s environmentally responsive, what you're hearing, and how, is different every time you're in the space. It's a bit of a collaboration with the wind.”

Going back to D Ý R A, its appearance at the Fringe – which Shaw hopes will be a respite from the frenzied atmosphere of the festival – will be the second time in front of an audience, after being presented as an outdoor installation in a disused oil tank in the Icelandic village of Þingeyri. It isn’t an exclusively sonic experience – as with much of Shaw’s work, numerous collaborators have worked with her to create a visually stimulating component. But, along with her piece at the V&A, it is a continued extension of her investigation into the practicalities of the listening experience. “I wonder now if I’ll think about this for all projects: what are the spaces we hadn't in the past considered to be suitable for performance, and why there’s a prescribed idea of how sound should sound and where and how we listen to or perceive it. That’s what’s excited me most.”

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D Ý R A runs at Summerhall, Edinburgh, 3-28 Aug, times vary
SHHE's V&A installation runs in the archway beneath the V&A Dundee, until 26 Sep, daily between 1-11pm

madeinscotlandshowcase.com / vam.ac.uk/dundee