Justin Bennett

My solo work presented here is only one aspect of what I do. Much of my time is spent on collective art and research projects. Examples include the long-term performance group BMB con, Jubilee, platform for artistic research, soundwalks made with theatre director Renate Zentschnig and film soundtracks for Vermeir & Heiremans, H.C. Gilje and Arianne Olthaar among others. I am also currently working (with the Brussels' organisation Q-O2) on a book about field recording. The city, with its stories, spaces, rhythms and sounds - its soundscape -, has been my main source of inspiration for a long time. Themes I have often explored include: the relationship between sound and architecture the politics of urban growth and development, gentrification and the role of the artist in it, the issue of art in public space, or the relationship between the city and nature. Increasingly, I also focus on rural and natural environments, with ecology related to human land use and industrial development. I make sound recordings in similar way to filming a video. These are sometimes long recordings where the microphone - that is, the listener's point-of-hearing - moves through a landscape, a city or through the different-sounding rooms of a building. Different microphones -like different lenses- are used to change perspective. Increasingly, I also use spoken text to work with narrative. Often the sound is shown in an installation context, sometimes with video as a "carrier" or frame for the sound work. Sometimes, too, the sound is folded back into the city itself, as in audiowalks or other works in public space. Each presentation method reaches a different audience and sometimes one project takes several forms as a result. In direct relation to the sound work are the drawings in which not only the city is mapped cartographically but also movement, sound, magnetic fields and the like. This creates an interaction between the two practices: the drawing can be a score, or sound can be used to draw.