Chesworth & Leber

Experienced as strategically arranged multi-channel sound installations for both interior and exterior sites, their works are designed to change over time. They often work in conjunction with curators, designers and architects to develop a specific approach for each context.

Artists' Statement

We have long been fascinated with the acoustic texture and the dynamic range of the human voice - beyond the speech content - its rhythms, sounds, shape, tone and frequency.

Many of our public installations feature a large number of human vocalisations sourced from everyday contexts. We have gathered the automatic vocalisations of people in a myriad of everyday contexts: street calls, army barracks, dog training schools, farm labour and sporting events.

Each installation is designed as a supple, ever-changing 'crowd system' where the fragments of vocalisations intersect with each other in different ways at different times.

We are particularly fascinated with the many 'proto-linguistic' vocalisations that people make. These are the sounds we make prior to - or instead of - articulating through language, where meanings are made without recourse to semantics or syntax. Where communication is through the 'shape' of speech, rather than speech content.

5000 Calls is a soundscape artwork created for public spaces where crowds gather. It is permanently installed in the extensive 4.5 hectare public space surrounding the exterior of Stadium Australia.

The ever-changing soundscape utilises 5000 different human vocalisations uncovered from everyday life. We emphasise the vocalisations that occur in-between words - gasps, sighs, grunts, different weights of breath - and the involuntary vocalisations made as a result of physical action. These varied sounds of 'effort' are the basis for the artwork which is configured as an ever-changing 'crowd system' in the exterior public space.

5000 Calls has since been exhibited in a number of re-configurations including along the Millennium Riverwalk in Cardiff, and along Ljubljana's Shoemaker's Footbridge in Slovenia.

In The Master's Voice, a permanent soundscape artwork created for City Walk in Canberra, people walking past a low wall trigger voices of people talking to animals. With the sounds of the animals edited out, the voices seem to be calling out directly to the passersby: beckoning, controlling, and coaxing. The addressee has been changed and visitors find themselves implicated in the work.

Human vocalisations are also the basis for our video installation The Persuaders, which was recently installed at Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne. Derived from impassioned automatic vocalisations of people in stimulated states, the fragments of vocalisations combine in changing densities of tension and release.

Commissioning Organisations include

Collaborative Artist as Independent

• Chesworth, David (1958 - )
• Leber, Sonia (1959 - )

Organisation

• Wax Sound Media

Work

• 5000 Calls - Cardiff, Five Thousand Calls - Cardiff (2002)
• 5000 Calls - Ljubljana, Five Thousand Calls - Ljubljana (2003)
• 5000 Calls - Prime Installation, Five Thousand Calls - Prime Installation (2000 - )
• The Master's Voice (2001 - )
• The Persuaders (2003)
• Proximities: Local histories / Global entanglements (2006 - )

Books

• 5000 Calls, Sydney Olympic Park Public Arts Program Catalogue, Sydney, 2000. [ Details... ]
• MacGregor, Tony, The Persuaders, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, 2003. [ Details... ]

Journal Articles

• 'Chorus of Approval', 24 Hours, March, 2002. [ Details... ]
• '5000 Calls', Chapter Arts Centre Magazine, October, 2002. [ Details... ]
• Felicity Fenner, 'Ground Work', Art in America, May, 2001. [ Details... ]
• Leber, Sonia & David Chesworth, '5000 Calls', Earshot Soundscape Journal, December, 2001. [ Details... ]

Newspaper Articles

• Butcher, Bleddyn, 'Australian sound artists David Chesworth and Sonia Leber', The Wire, no. 233, July, 2003. [ Details... ]
• Gawronski, Alex, 'Game Over? The Olympics Arts Commissions', Real Time, no. 40, December, 2000. [ Details... ]
• Regnier, Philipe, 'Art and the Olympics', The Art Newspaper, no. 105, July, 2000. [ Details... ]
• Whitelaw, Mitchell, 'Sit, Ubu, Sit. Good Dog', Real Time, no. 46, December, 2001. [ Details... ]

Radio Interviews

• James, Bruce, The Master’s Voice, Interview on Arts Today, ABC Radio National, 1 November, 2001. [ Details... ]