Mullagh Gearr
Multichannel Sound2026
Mullagh Gearr is a series of multi-channel sound works based on field recordings collected along the west coast of Ireland, associated with the so-called “lost village” of Mullagh Gearr, a site that exists ambiguously between physical location, folklore, and disappearance. Rather than attempting to document this place directly, the work engages with it as a conceptual and perceptual construct.
The recordings are transformed with techniques developed through my PhD research that preserve the temporal structure of the recordings while gradually altering their sonic character. Familiar elements, waves, wind, and distant resonances, remain perceptible, but shift into unstable and unfamiliar textures.
This creates a tension between recognition and estrangement, where the soundscape appears to dissolve and re-form over time. The work reflects on how environments are mediated through technology, and how memory and place can be reconstituted through transformation rather than preservation.
Presented as a spatialised multichannel sound installation, the piece unfolds slowly, inviting listeners to inhabit an evolving sonic environment. The audio provided here is a shortened stereo version of the full work.