間 (Ma)

間

Sound Installation  ·  Jordan Nobles  ·  2024–

Ma (間) is a Japanese concept with no direct Western equivalent — the pregnant pause, the negative space, the silence between sounds that gives them meaning. It is not emptiness. It is the condition that makes presence possible.

This sound installation draws on that idea to create a spatial listening environment in which twelve voices exist simultaneously, each arriving from a different point in space, each carrying its own silence.

The Work

間 is realized through twelve iPad Pros positioned throughout the installation space, each playing recordings of a different Yokohama musician. The performers — all residents of the city — were recorded separately, in their own acoustic environments, with the sounds of their surroundings left intact. No single performer can hear the others. Each recording holds its own silences, its own breath, its own ambient space.

In the installation, these twelve streams play simultaneously but without synchronization. The listener moves through the space, their body becoming the mixing point — drawing near to one voice, drifting between two others, pausing in a region of overlap or of quiet. The experience is never the same twice. No conductor. No score. Only presence, distribution, and the spaces in between.

Technical Details

  • 12 iPad Pros, each running a dedicated audio playback channel
  • 12 field recordings of Yokohama musicians, captured on location in Yokohama, Japan
  • Recordings include each performer’s ambient acoustic environment
  • Playback is non-synchronized — each stream begins and proceeds independently
  • Installation footprint is flexible; can be configured for various room geometries
  • Spatial placement of devices is determined in response to each venue

Context

間 was developed in part through a residency at the EIAF Artist-in-Residence program at 7artscafe, Yokohama. The project continues a long-standing inquiry into spatial composition and deep listening — asking what it means to place sound in space rather than time, and to invite the listener’s movement as a compositional element.

The choice of Yokohama musicians reflects a commitment to embeddedness: the sounds of this work belong to a specific place, and carry that place with them wherever the installation travels.

For exhibition enquiries: jordannobles@gmail.com