Echoes of the Lived
“Echoes of the Lived” is a sound installation that uses the single life of a battery-farmed hen as a metaphor for the human condition boxed inside a relentless cycle. This piece blurs the boundaries between human and more than human, inviting listeners to reflect on the universal struggle for purpose and freedom within systems of control. This expands on the exhibition space of 1 metre squared and theme of ‘thinking inside the box’ to consider the animal that lived their life in a battery farm.
The soundscape is an 8-channel speaker system surrounding a cage that the viewer / listener stands in. The narrators voice is calm, yet introspective, a vehicle for philosophical musings on freedom, purpose, and paradox of striving within set constraints.
CREDITS
Concept, script and recording by: R.M. Sánchez-Camus
Sound Design by: Patrick Furness
Sound Engineering by: Greg Chapman
Sound Tech by: Phil Nicholas
Communications: Alisha Waters
Exhibition Space: Hatch Somerset
The narrative unfolds from the perspective of the caged animal as a metaphor. It begins in the warm, fleeting innocence of birth—a microcosm of hope—before confronting the stark confines of the industrial complex. Blurring chapters of life mirror any lived experience: the repetitive tasks of survival, the pursuit of fleeting comforts, the growing awareness of limitations, and the profound yearning for something more.
The soundscape will be layered: the rhythmic clatter of machines evokes the monotony of daily life; faint echoes of clucks mirror collective yet disconnected voices; and a heartbeat-like thrum underscores the tension between vitality and suppression. The narrator’s voice, calm yet introspective, becomes a vehicle for philosophical musings on freedom, purpose, and the paradox of striving within constraints. The sound will be targeted to the person seated and avoid soundspill to other works.
A gramophone horn, placed like a broken prop missing its record box, is the dislocated voice devoid of a body. A stool bathed in the glow of a spotlight, becomes a solitary symbol of the subject. The setting invites the audience to sit and confront the parallels between the past former warehouse resident’s life and their own.
“Echoes of the Lived” is the story of a farmed animal and a reflection of us all, trapped in systems we did not create yet support by existing in them and somehow cannot escape.
