Excellent article/essay piece by Ben Byrne on the sound of warehouses in Sydney, and the impact of changing demographics, urban planning etc on this sound.
The constructed space of the warehouse has been integral to cultural development in Sydney, providing a unique environment for artists to produce and present their work free of the expectations and limitations of the more heavily codified space that dominates society. In particular, warehouse space has played an intimate and crucial role in the development of artists working with sound in Sydney, through which a symbiotic relationship between sound and space has emerged to such an extent that it is doubtful that the constructed cultural space of the warehouse could be translated into new real world spaces. Despite the inescapable societal frameworks that surround it, the cultural space of the warehouse has been an invaluable space of possibility, escape and collective imagining and its gradual disappearance in the inner city will force further shifts in sound culture in Sydney.
