Bxl L28 North

The garden became a popular meeting place for young people. Before its conversion into a green city space, the site of Tour & Taxis offered several of these locations.

With the steady disappearance of other hidden locations, the garden with its agora space became a popular meeting place for local youth. With the gradual disappearance of other hidden locations, the garden with its agora became a popular meeting place with young people from the area.The sound of hip-hop sound is absolutely present here. Young people are often caught up in the real-time magic of a sonic sphere performed in hip hop track.

There is a local hip-hop scene that comes from the area around the blocks and the square located on the other side of the park.

Recording (2014) Video: Sky feat Zvdu17 - Yanso. (2021). Millions d’euros. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJX3N8nPQkI

The collective garden located on one of the taluses supports the presence of rather unique urban sound spheres such as those generated by the collective gardening, cultivating the soil and gardeners, gardeners interacting with plants, trees, and animals. The presence of trees and bushes attract different animals. This contributes to a combination of different intense sound spheres. The part at the back of the garden was inhabited for a long time.

The urban sound space of the garden stimulates careful listening. Relatively silence spheres offer acoustic comfort. The intimacy of the garden allows for an increased sonic clarity and a vivid exploration of uncanny sonic phenomena.

Last winter, one of the firms located in the buildings adjacent to the garden decided to cut down trees against the wall so that it could install video cameras. This operation was preceded by the removal of trees on the border with the park a year earlier. Together with the trees, a part of the intimacy of this space disappeared. Spheres coming from the park and the surrounding streets can now penetrate the sound space of the garden. The removal of the trees in front of the wall led to an amplified effect of sounds bouncing back. Not only resulted this in a loss of intimacy, sonic articulation and opportunity for non-anthropocentrism, it also introduced a continuous and ubiquitous presence of electromagnetic waves.

A mix of this technological based sound sphere with the ecological intensity, persistent intimacy of the garden works on many levels—you can zoom out, you can zoom in, or you can drift somewhere in between, but no matter what position, human – non human one search approach the sound space of the garden, the space ends up enveloping you.

Recording (2021)

The collective garden located on one of the taluses supports the presence of rather unique urban sound spheres such as those generated by the collective gardening, cultivating the soil and gardeners, gardeners interacting with plants, trees, and animals. The presence of trees and bushes attract different animals. This contributes to a combination of different intense sound spheres. The part at the back of the garden was inhabited for a long time.

The urban sound space of the garden stimulates careful listening. Relatively silence spheres offer acoustic comfort. The intimacy of the garden allows for an increased sonic clarity and a vivid exploration of uncanny sonic phenomena.

Last winter, one of the firms located in the buildings adjacent to the garden decided to cut down trees against the wall so that it could install video cameras. This operation was preceded by the removal of trees on the border with the park a year earlier. Together with the trees, a part of the intimacy of this space disappeared. Spheres coming from the park and the surrounding streets can now penetrate the sound space of the garden. The removal of the trees in front of the wall led to an amplified effect of sounds bouncing back. Not only resulted this in a loss of intimacy, sonic articulation and opportunity for non-anthropocentrism, it also introduced a continuous and ubiquitous presence of electromagnetic waves.

A mix of this technological based sound sphere with the ecological intensity, persistent intimacy of the garden works on many levels—you can zoom out, you can zoom in, or you can drift somewhere in between, but no matter what position, human – non human one search approach the sound space of the garden, the space ends up enveloping you.

Recording (2021)

The collective garden located on one of the taluses supports the presence of rather unique urban sound spheres such as those generated by the collective gardening, cultivating the soil and gardeners, gardeners interacting with plants, trees, and animals. The presence of trees and bushes attract different animals. This contributes to a combination of different intense sound spheres. The part at the back of the garden was inhabited for a long time.

The urban sound space of the garden stimulates careful listening. Relatively silence spheres offer acoustic comfort. The intimacy of the garden allows for an increased sonic clarity and a vivid exploration of uncanny sonic phenomena.

Last winter, one of the firms located in the buildings adjacent to the garden decided to cut down trees against the wall so that it could install video cameras. This operation was preceded by the removal of trees on the border with the park a year earlier. Together with the trees, a part of the intimacy of this space disappeared. Spheres coming from the park and the surrounding streets can now penetrate the sound space of the garden. The removal of the trees in front of the wall led to an amplified effect of sounds bouncing back. Not only resulted this in a loss of intimacy, sonic articulation and opportunity for non-anthropocentrism, it also introduced a continuous and ubiquitous presence of electromagnetic waves.

A mix of this technological based sound sphere with the ecological intensity, persistent intimacy of the garden works on many levels—you can zoom out, you can zoom in, or you can drift somewhere in between, but no matter what position, human – non human one search approach the sound space of the garden, the space ends up enveloping you.

Recording (2021)

The collective garden located on one of the taluses supports the presence of rather unique urban sound spheres such as those generated by the collective gardening, cultivating the soil and gardeners, gardeners interacting with plants, trees, and animals. The presence of trees and bushes attract different animals. This contributes to a combination of different intense sound spheres. The part at the back of the garden was inhabited for a long time.

The urban sound space of the garden stimulates careful listening. Relatively silence spheres offer acoustic comfort. The intimacy of the garden allows for an increased sonic clarity and a vivid exploration of uncanny sonic phenomena.

Last winter, one of the firms located in the buildings adjacent to the garden decided to cut down trees against the wall so that it could install video cameras. This operation was preceded by the removal of trees on the border with the park a year earlier. Together with the trees, a part of the intimacy of this space disappeared. Spheres coming from the park and the surrounding streets can now penetrate the sound space of the garden. The removal of the trees in front of the wall led to an amplified effect of sounds bouncing back. Not only resulted this in a loss of intimacy, sonic articulation and opportunity for non-anthropocentrism, it also introduced a continuous and ubiquitous presence of electromagnetic waves.

A mix of this technological based sound sphere with the ecological intensity, persistent intimacy of the garden works on many levels—you can zoom out, you can zoom in, or you can drift somewhere in between, but no matter what position, human – non human one search approach the sound space of the garden, the space ends up enveloping you.

Recording (2021)

Spheres can occur performer-less, following a structure of seemingly randomness. The valley topography allows heavy rain or storm to dominate volumetrically, becoming all-pervasively.

The presence of water in all its various forms generates non-anthropocentric activity. On the one hand, there is the possibility of human non-human interaction; on the other hand, a frozen wet land, for example, can install a totally non-anthropocentric sphere.

The wasteland that preceded the park and is still present in one area, offered a listener a rather generated field of randomly generated sets of acoustic waves. Some of this randomness is now somehow replicated by opening up the park to a flexible usage, with people walking, playing on various locations. This gives a pointillist effect, but it is not nearly as unpredictable and layered as the sound space of the wasteland. That can be called shame.

Today, the urban sound space is a significantly more human centric, but it lacks sense of glittering infinity that it possessed for a long time as vacant railway land.

Recording (2021)

This centrally located park offers a relatively large amount of open space. It can be experienced both visually and aurally.

It is often quieter here than in the public space of surrounding neighborhoods and allows its visitors to sense sound at long distances. Nonetheless, the urban sound space of Park Tour & Taxis reveals itself to the human listener as a dynamic space combining different sound spheres.

Human activity brings in multiple human-centric spheres traversing the sound space according to the season, time of day. Activities on construction sites, the organization of festivals and a gradually increasing and diversifying appropriation of the central green space reflect audibly the environmental and social transformation of the site make over a period time.

Traffic flows occasionally sparked by a sliding siren contribute to a distant ambient/drone core of the urban sound space. Activities in the surrounding neighborhoods manifest themselves first at the edges of this urban space from where they tend to blend gradually inward.

Sonic and/or non-audible vibrations, surpass many physical demarcations, allowing activity to travel over a longer distance.

Recording (2014)

Listening to Jubilee Bridge Erosion

The performance of infrastructure under traffic depends as much on the supporting characteristics of the foundation and embankment soils as does the strength and stability of bridges. The Jubilee Bridge is an iron, Art Nouveau structure, that connects Avenue du Jubilee with Avenue Emile Bockstaell. It was built in 1905 following a design by engineer Frédéric Bruneel. The bridge consists of three successive spans. Until 2000, the railway line L28 was underneath, connecting the western ring railway line with the Gare Maritime terminus. Since 2007 the bridge is listed as heritage. In 2021 the owner SNCB and Brussels Region agreed to invest together in its renovation.

Recording (2014)

Sky is a well-known rapper in Brussels. He is associated with Guillotine Records label and has been making music for a longer time, exploring several styles. He has collaborated with various people, producers and rappers from the neighborhood, rappers from other areas in Brussels and performers from abroad.

De video clip of a recent track featuring Sky and Zvdu17 - Yanso was shot at Laekenveld Square with Tour & Taxis housing construction site in the back. It brings in a sound sphere marked by strong UK influences and sampling culture. Overall, it has an aggressive clean edge. There is a quite an articulated interest for sonic spatiality. Spatial sound effects such as inverted acoustics interplay with video images and text. On the background radio voice is dropping war announcements suggesting other spaces. Other effects used are phrasing of delays and reverbs to create spaces around the verses. This hip-hop track is rich in sonic spatiality projecting the listener into an aggressive but delicate real and moving sound sphere.

Recording (2020)

Video: Sky feat 3robi. (2019). Bruxterdam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0lqCMujRd0 Sky feat Zvdu17 - Yanso. (2021). Millions d’euros. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJX3N8nPQkI

Bees use vibration and sound signals to communicate within the colony. Modalities of vibroacoustic signal production include large body movements, wing movements, high-frequency muscle contractions without wing movements, and pressing the thorax against the substrates or another be. Resulting vibroacoustic signals modulate behaviors that affect swarming, and the queen’s behavior during swarming.

Bee-Car - Moktar's beehive(s) - Parckfarm Tour & Taxis Recording (2014)

With the project of Pannenhuis Park Brussels carved out a new public urban sound space.

The sound space fuses different elements such as humidity, trees, focus, stillness, seemingly random patterns, chaos. It brings in a mixture of sonic intensity and spatiality, in part due to the design and program of the new park, but certainly also due to the presence of the railway line and other industrial heritage. Some of its sound spheres such as those generated by the water element and dense zone of trees are quite adequate for inducing a kind of aural contact with nature that not many public spaces in Brussels have. The mix of elements such as water and trees in a corridor triggers the articulation of more random elements. The park allows more unexpected shapes to perform and its sound space takes on unforeseen timbres. Different elements situated in the landscape, the old or newly installed architectural systems bring in various immersive material.

Compared to Park Tour & Taxis, there are more immersive spheres here. These spheres gain extra power from their regular alternation with the piercing sound waves of passing trains, another prominent sonic attribute of this urban sound space.

Recording (2014)

With the project of Pannenhuis Park Brussels carved out a new public urban sound space.

The sound space fuses different elements such as humidity, trees, focus, stillness, seemingly random patterns, chaos. It brings in a mixture of sonic intensity and spatiality, in part due to the design and program of the new park, but certainly also due to the presence of the railway line and other industrial heritage. Some of its sound spheres such as those generated by the water element and dense zone of trees are quite adequate for inducing a kind of aural contact with nature that not many public spaces in Brussels have. The mix of elements such as water and trees in a corridor triggers the articulation of more random elements. The park allows more unexpected shapes to perform and its sound space takes on unforeseen timbres. Different elements situated in the landscape, the old or newly installed architectural systems bring in various immersive material.

Compared to Park Tour & Taxis, there are more immersive spheres here. These spheres gain extra power from their regular alternation with the piercing sound waves of passing trains, another prominent sonic attribute of this urban sound space.

Recording (2014)Recording (2014)

(Sonic) vibrations escape the underground railway infrastructure moving outwards in different directions.

Recording (2020)

POCKET PARK RUE CHAMP DE L’ÉGLISE • KERKEVELDSTRAAT is one of the four pocket parks realized within the framework of the sustainable Bockstael neighborhood contract. Together with Park L28, these pocket parks have been programmed as part of the development of a green network connecting Laeken with Tour & Taxis. Today the pocket park is not in use. A fence makes access impossible. It had a difficult start, and the collective space was appropriated by youth who showed little interest in the idea of gardening.

Moments of spacious stillness define its urban sound space. A trembling fence adds texture and dynamics. Shifting drone swells from swooping and sliding trains contribute to its eeriness. Sounds from trains arriving from a distance dissolve in loud and sharp sliding and cracking sounds. The far and slowly arriving trains introduce a controlled static growing sound field so loud it eventually overrides all other sounds becoming a wall of sound before before fading and disappearing out of the sound space.

Recording (2021)

After four years of renovations, the old railway station building.this space will reopen end of September 2021. The future project will operate as a platform for local participation, meeting, and creation.

Anno 2021 moments of spacious stillness define its urban sound space. Shifting drone swells from swooping and sliding trains contribute to its eeriness. Sounds from trains arriving from a distance dissolve in loud and sharp sliding and cracking sounds. The far and slowly arriving trains introduce a controlled static growing sound field so loud it eventually overrides all other sounds becoming a wall of sound before before fading and disappearing out of the sound space.

Recording (2021)