Four Shepherds by Duncan Whitley
Produced by Binaural/Nodar
Venue: DIVAcontemporary Studio,
No.1 King Square, Bridport, Dorset DT6 3QE, UK
Dates: Sat, 22 June 2013 – 11:00am – 4:00pm
Price: FREE
Four Shepherds is a documentary sound project, based around the vocalisations of the shepherds of a small village in the São Macário mountains. Working with a community of goat-herders in Covas do Monte – one of the few villages in the region where a communal shepherding system is employed to manage the approximately 1,500 goats that are owned and kept there – a series of sound recordings were captured in which the shepherds document their daily work taking their flock to pasture.
Four Shepherds was developed through a production residency in Covas do Monte, as part of Binaural/Nodar’s ‘Magaio Voicescapes’ programme in 2011. The project explores issues of sound and space, the mapping of geographic and acoustic territories through multi-channel sound production (specifically the contested territories co-habited by wolves and the people of Covas do Monte), and the narrative possibilities opened up through reconstructing the individual paths or journeys of four shepherds within an immersive sound environment.