Suburban Train Traveller

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: 'Suburban Train Traveller' is a 60-second sound work that was selected for inclusion in the 60x60 event at ACMA-2014. 60x60 events have been programmed across the world since 2003. They include 60-second fragments of works from 60 artists, selected from an international pool of emerging and established composers, and sequenced in order. The resulting mix is presented, without interruption, as a continuous one-hour performance synchronised to an on-stage analogue clock. Lacey's work was based on the idea of composition by chance encounter. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: New knowledge presented is the possibility to construct compositions based on urban sounds that have been collected by random individuals. "In this instance I had met a young man who spends his days riding the trains collecting sound recordings of train and station announcements with his mp3 recorder. He told me he had collected nearly every announcement, and offered to send me a copy. The work is entirely constructed from his recordings." This is a humanist approach that considers all relationships with urban sounds to be equally valid; a phenomenological position from which new approaches to urban sound design can be constructed. The work is part of Lacey's ongoing research at the interface of the sonic arts and urban design, exploring artistic and conceptual developments in the field of sound studies. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: The significance of this work is evidenced by its selection for the 60x60 event at the peer-reviewed ACMA conference, an annual conference for composers and researchers in the field. The work was presented alongside other experimental sound artists. An abstract of the work was included in the 'Proceedings for artist talks, posters and performances.' The event was reviewed by Daily Review online.