Gongs of Teesside, Sonic Arts Week

Gongs of Teesside is a three-gong sound installation tracing a journey through material, making and place. Made from steel cut beside the River Tees, the gongs were forged by hand, then taken out and sounded across the Tees Valley — in and around the ex-iron-mining town of Skinningrove in East Cleveland, and among the remains of Redcar Blast Furnace — with people whose lives and work are connected to those places.

In the installation, transducers turn the gongs themselves into loudspeakers. The sounds of steel being cut and forged, and of the gongs being played in these different places, return as physical vibration through the metal. The gongs become both objects and sounding bodies: carrying traces of their own making, journeys and encounters.