A turn at the Fern Garden

While in Canberra recently I recorded the sound of the gate leading into the Fiona Hall fern garden at the National Gallery of Australia.

The video above is my first attempt at composing music with the material and it's the start of a process where I get a sense of where I can take the sounds. Anyway, I think I may need to record the gate again to get the result I want.

Fiona Hall is one of my favourite Australian artists and the garden is one of my favourite spots in Canberra. It's nice to visit it at night, when the lights cast an eerie orange glow.

I've given the track the name 'Hysteria' as this was once seen as a condition that arose from the womb, which is represented in the design of the gates.

And after I recorded these, I visited a woman who had been placed in the mental health ward. She wasn't hysterical though, she was quite calm and perhaps medicated.