Borderlands, 2020, by Madelynne Cornish is an audio-visual installation investigating the relationships between urban ecology, human engagement and land use. Created during a month-long residency at McClelland and complementing the exhibition Site and Sound: Sonic art as ecological practice, it draws on the rich landscape of the sculpture park and surrounding environment, including a wetland conservation area, council nature reserve, concrete works, and residential estates. The project's foci are the temporal and spatial qualities of the geography and the fauna and flora of these sites – microphones were placed in and around the sculpture park and its borderlands to register natural and anthropogenic sound including industry, wildlife and weather.

The soundtrack consists of four movements of approximately eleven minutes each, recorded in and around McClelland Sculpture Park through winter and spring; including pre-dawn frog calls, a dawn bird chorus, electromagnetic fields from a telecommunications tower, and McClelland’s perimeter traffic noise. These sounds are juxtaposed with the visual framing of the urban ecology to create an immersive audio-visual installation in the gallery, which details the complexity of the ecological interactions occurring within the sculpture park and its environs.

This project was presented in partnership with RMIT Culture and SIAL Sound Studios (RMIT), with technical assistance from Simon Maisch and Erik North.

Images: Madelynne Cornish, Borderlands, 2020, audiovisual installation, dimensions variable, image 4 channels, sound 8 channels, 44 mins, installation view and details. Commissioned with assistance from the Besen Family Foundation. Photos Christian Capurro.