Figure/Ground / 2002
Lin-Chi-Wei and Alex Geddie(C)
Sound Environment – speakers,computer
.WAV (capital culturel d’europe 2002
Minnewater Park / Brugge / Belgium

Figure/Ground is a public sound installation for .WAV festival 2002 in Belgium,which camouflaged the recorded sounds into real life context of a best visiting touristic site in Brugge ,On the terrasewhere the visitors stay,6 speakers are hidden in the trees to play 6 tracks of pre-recorded local environmental noises I recorded in half year. A Few tourists found it strange when hearing other tourists?sound from the top of the trees ,as well swans singing in the bush,Most people stay with this half virtual noisy sounds for hours without even recognize the existence of them, but however the locals reacted strong ,the sparrows starts to attack and went crazy around the hidden speaker( the sparrow sound was recorded in previous days at the very same site) , mallards left the pond to follow the camarades? calling in bush,At night the pond is in total silence, and this corner becomes surreal because it sounds as busy as day times!

The murmuring of young boys touching each other coming from the trees are especially made to correspond to themid-night soundscapes around the lake!