Concrete Antenna is a sound installation created by artist, designer and musician Tommy Perman, Professor of Language Evolution at the University of Edinburgh, Simon Kirby, and Caught by the River contributor Rob St. John. It opens 14th November at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and entry is free.

“The project sonically explores the past, present and (potential) future of the Workshop’s site. Sound gathered from audio archives and specially made field recordings will rise, fall, break apart and splice together across multiple speakers throughout the 20 metre-tall triangular concrete tower, evoking the site’s various histories as a blacksmith’s forge, a railway siding close to the Newhaven docks and now a wildlife-rich cycle route. Using a range of unusual production techniques derived from the tower itself, the recordings – foghorns, train whistles, gas works demolition, birdsong, construction, wind in fishing boat sails and many more – are slowly reshaped in the piece, coalescing from their original form to something musical and celebratory.”

This is the first time Rob, Simon and Tommy have worked together as a trio. Tommy and Rob have previously worked together on the critically acclaimed art-science collaboration Water of Life . Tommy and Simon have collaborated on numerous projects as part of the FOUND Collective since 2007.

Here’s a snippet of sound they’re working on for the installation, made using various foghorn recordings;