In Sound Mind

Written by Louise Evans

It's early November and I’m climbing the stairs to the Film Archive of Auckland, to view Sam Hamilton’s Sonar Realidad Interior, an installation of field recordings from the Amazon. It’s been a hot day, and K Road appears singularly manic, so I’m not in the best of sorts. But I’ve had it on good authority that Sam is One Interesting Guy, and also a Very Nice Bloke, so it’s worth dragging myself out on a Wednesday night to see what he’s been up to.

At first glance the installation is one big jumble of cables, CD players and speakers, but upon entering the room I’m wrapped in a deliciously unfamiliar blanket of sound. The jumble is meticulously placed. It’s a little cavernous in here, with the windows covered over, and I’m stooping and stretching, seeking the hotspots to find all the morsels of sound scattered throughout the room. The transportation is easily manipulated and lightning fast – position yourself correctly and close your eyes, and you’re amongst the bugs and birds and slimy things, crawly things, venomous things....open eyes again and it’s back to the world of technology. The exhibition flier claims that ‘the seemingly chaotic and sprawling structural foundations employed in this work are designed to function in pseudo-mimicry of the ecological mechanics of jungle life.’ 

Standing within the guts of the thing, I become increasingly taken by the craft and care that has gone into this, and that it’s one of the most original things I’ve been to in awhile. The crafty Sam Hamilton, I decide, is perfect fodder for Morph’s DYI themed issue. Surely the man has many strings to his bow for him to undertake such a project. Fueled by fascination, curiosity and not a little jealousy, I line him up for an interview.

Now it’s Friday, a month later, and I’m meeting Sam for a bit of a chat. On first impression he is exactly the approachable and likeable character that he has been described as. A great number of people must also think so, for as we amble down Karangehape Road to a cafe he waves at what seems to be every second passerby.  But celebrity status on K Road can either mean you’re famous or infamous, so I’m going to reserve my judgement for the time being.

As far as the jungle story goes, he was asked along with ten others from around the world on a two week residency into the Brazilian Amazon. The residency was created by a well known Spanish sound artist and biologist. Sam considered the effort to get there, and the fact that he’d fancied the idea of the Amazon as a destination since his childhood, and he decided to spend a few more months there. About a year’s worth of research went into how he was going to do it, as it was a much bigger project than what the two weeks would allow.    

            

One wonders about the sheer amount of material there must be – hundreds and hundreds of hours of sound. Indeed Sam has not only recorded the jungle, but also marketplaces, music, street noise, farming, the ship yards, sound of machetes cutting, and much more. His whole trip is on archive, so it’s little wonder that he comments on the fact that feedback often doesn’t affect him, as anything put out to the public seems to be a condensed speck of what really went on. ‘When I came back, people would ask- how was it? And all I could say was, um....’okay’. I sometimes felt like saying, ‘do you want to spend a month talking about it? Then you may get an idea...’ But how I do like talking about it is when it sometimes slips into everyday conversation, as a memory is triggered.’

There’s no arrogance in his tone, it’s just a statement on the enormity of the project and how absorbed he became in the experience. ‘It’s not like here (in Auckland), where I do work, and then go eat dinner, and I leave it. Over there all my time was consumed by my work – I ate and I was still in the thick of it. I never left.’ ‘Being there I was so holistically engaged, and I knew it was intrinsically the right thing to be doing, at the right time. You know those moments in your life when you know you know it’s time to do something ridiculously epic?’

‘There are different ways of looking at the recordings – there’s the objective in that you have pure raw collected material, and then there is the subjective, which is very personal. I was definitely in the subjective, as I was so emotionally entangled in the recording process. It took me ages to stop thinking of it like – oh, I remember that time when I recorded that...’

The changing of headspace to ‘objective’ was necessary for Sam to make the recordings accessible for public appreciation and to edit them accordingly. Since his return he’s made many installations and concerts out of all the material, taking him to most major city centres in NZ. However he remains perplexed about the recordings in regard to himself. ‘In ten years from now maybe I’ll understand it. But I still don’t know what my relationship to it is, what I’m actually supposed to be doing with it. It sometimes seems so out of context and away from its function. In many ways I think it was a prototype...’

There can’t be much time for endless days of reflection on this, as Sam is constantly seeking new avenues for expression. With his girlfriend Eve he makes abstract projections with 8mm, 16mm and 35mm film in a project called the Parasitic Fantasy Band. He’s regularly involved in playing at concerts and events surrounding the experimental music community, and also is the guitarist in a free noise band which he describes as playing ‘joyful, meaningless, ecstatic noise’

He really enjoys the community of experimental musicians in NZ, which he says has quite an amazing history. ‘I’ve been to cities where I thought it was really segregated, and it seemed strange that in the experimental music scene there, you could get such narrow minded attitudes, from what comes from a broad minded attitude to begin with. But then there are other cities with far more of a community spirit across the genres...’

On the day of our interview he’s preparing for a one day mini explorative music festival with the Shifting Sounds Collective- ‘a project focussed on exploring, recording, transforming and engaging with the physical and metaphysical acoustic architecture and ephemeral sonic ecology of Auckland city’. The festival has two parts – the first a concert with members of the collective and other experimental sound artists, and the second two guided sound walks, where participants are taken out, in complete silence, on a strategically planned urban tour. It strikes me as some kind of guerilla education unit. ‘It’s amazing to go out with so many people and see them respond with the city on another level. It’s about optimising your ability to listen – it may sound cheesy, but it’s consciousness expanding...’ All in all Mr Hamilton seems at home both within the urban sprawl and the deep jungle, with all that each has to offer. He’s constantly involved in instigating new ways to connect with his environs, and his life is consumed by the various projects that he creates.

‘As soon as money comes into the play, or there is a commercial aspect added, I feel it naturally restricts and inhibits one to develop....of course it’s good in some ways, but I don’t know, finance and art don’t seem to always meet on an ethical level. But I do think that the economic crisis could be the next greatest thing for the New Zealand art world. It’ll probably flush out bad attitudes and complacency, and allow for a sense of community to come to fruition.’

These last months he’s had a job that’s paid enough for him to have the security to work on his own projects. But in the end it’s all going back to his art. ‘From this job I had enough money for me to have a nice summer, without working. But sure enough, I put it all into travelling, so now I’ve got nothing again. Everything just seems to go into the next project.’ The next projects include taking the Parasitic Fantasy Band to the West Coast of the United States in April and playing shows. Then in May and June it’s off to Europe to create music and sound for the dance troupe Mau, at the Venice Biennale and in Paris in 2010. Sam is a man with an eclectic and enviable calendar of events.

Any suggestion of defining himself is met with uproarious laughter. ‘There are always going to be people that know me as the field recording guy, then those that know me as a projectionist, or a free noise guitarist, or anything of what I do. As for defining myself, I take great joy in not trying.’

We part ways and head off into the summer sun in our respective directions. I’m left feeling invigorated and inspired by motivated and curious individuals in our midst. It’s a jungle out there and I’m glad someone’s seeing it for what it is.