Duncan Whitley
Duncan Whitley studied BA Hons Fine Art at Kingston University (UK) from 1996 to 1999, where he worked almost exclusively with sound installation.
In the following years his work continued with a focus on site-specific interventions, producing work in both sanctioned art spaces and ‘non-art spaces’ (from domestic environments, to derelict flats, to Church of England churches).
From 2004 his practice shifted towards stereo and multichannel ‘field recording’, developing a significant archive of project-specific phonographic studies. His sound recording work documents the ritual of social events: the highly formalised Semana Santa processions in Seville; football spectatorship across different tiers of the British football league; the controlled demolition of high-rise flats in cities around England and Scotland.
Working with themes of acoustic communication, Duncan’s field recording projects highlight the role of sound in the facilitation of social relations within the context of these events.
These projects subtly unveil the potential of the acoustic in the fabrication, consolidation and subversion of power relations.
This shift in practice nevertheless still remains orientated towards largescale sound installation, and some of the core concerns of his prior work run through into his current practice, in particular: the relationships between sound, (architectural) space and the listener; point of audition and the role of the listener as an active agent in the reception of sound work; and the problems of (mimetic) representation of scenes of the aural world through electroacoustic means of reproduction.
