Sound in the installation

Sound is largely overlooked in multimedia projects, yet is a fundamental part of the interactive experience. Electronic arts festivals, museums, curators usually exclude sound art made from popular and not so popular street culture whilst at the same time calling for more inclusivity and cultural diversity. It seems to Mongrel that curators are either stuck at the idea that they are 'art-loving post-racists' or that the culture of other social groups is not of concern to publicly funded bodies; or that the work is not of sufficient artistic and critical merit to be included. Yet it is blindingly obvious to us that the self-confidence of subordinate English street cultures indicates a clear ability to deal with issues around race.

This is demonstrable in their philosophies of 'mixing it up' and in the mongrel anthems that appear frequently in such sounds as Jungle, Bhangra and UK Soul for example. The mongrel anthems of popular culture resound and it is for this reason that Mongrel wishes to pay special attention to this area in National Heritage. We wish to bring together individuals from a diverse group to explore culture clash around the themes of National Heritage. This will be done by holding a set of one-day recording sessions hosted at Artec in which the sound artists will focus on constructing sound for the spacial environment of the installation.