The interplay between the sound composition and the visual appearance of the fluorescent lines and material reflections always poised on the threshold of the barely audible and barely material. 

Barely will be up at ROM from 7th to 28th November 2008 and will further explore the concept, this time in relation to a gallery space in urban Oslo. 

Composition and Sound Design: Natasha Barrett

Project leader: Birger Sevaldson

With OCEAN design research

About Barely

Sound-art, Music and Composition

Barely is a paradigm of composition, sound-art and multi-media that creates a highly detailed, perceptual layer just above the 'experienced threshold' of our senses; in both the immediate 'real-time' substance and in a temporal context of structure and syntax. The complexity of our everyday stimuli tends to a state of noise - not only in terms of sound but also in all information received by our senses. The Barely paradigm explores reality and presents an alternative organisation of this complexity. It entices the individual into deep attention, concentration and sensual experience by offering detail at a level that is only just perceptual, enhancing what is already present in both the individual and the location of the work, rather than attempting to introduce the artificial. In terms of both substance and concept, Barely can be regarded as the antithesis to noise.

The Barely paradigm is manifest in a number of forms spanning abstract sound-art, acousmatic composition, acoustic instrumental performance and spatial sound-architecture.

Barely: explores the paradigm in terms of public space and installation.. The work involves a large 'barely visible' spatial installation created in collaboration with experimental designer and architect Birger Sevaldson. From a conceptual angle, there are many ways to problematise Barely in terms of visual space. Sevaldson has designed a solution involving clear, colourless plastic foil, UV light, reflective paint, sightlines and spatial conjunction, distortion and fragmentation. In terms of sound, a 16-channel composition is spatialised over 12 high quality near-field loudspeakers and 40 transparent miniature loudspeaker elements. The composed material is 70 minutes in duration. The opening of the installation involves a three-hour performance where spatialisation and material complexity is mixed in real-time in response to the audiences' interaction (staying time, physical motion, self produced sound level, change in room acoustics).