The original sound installation consisted of three headphones playing back three different sounds. Through the first set of headphones the sound of snow was heard, close up and sounding like dust or sugar. The second was the sound of a Buddhist monk meditating in an empty room. The last was the sound of volcanic steam seeping out of the sides of a mountain. Alongside the headphones were one thousand origami cranes. The paper was made from photo snapshots of Japan and when made the cranes were hung in ten rows of one hundred. To make one thousand origami cranes is a Japanese symbol of health and longevity.

The sound pieces were produced from Mini Disc recordings I made in Japan 2002. The audio has been extracted from Hokkaido's volcanic snow-covered landscape. The composition and patterns of the sound are based on the way I heard these sounds; they are inspired by my experience of listening.

One of the recordings was made inside a temple. During "Zazen" meditation the sound of an empty room was opening out to me and I was hearing sounds deep into the room. One evening I recorded the sound of an empty midnight landscape, again I was listening into the silence and into the distance. Sounds would ring out from the distance, then a split second later I would hear silent space again.
Simon Keep