900 Voices was a participative sound art project by Zoë Irvine with Lindsay Perth and Jules Rawlinson. It was commissioned as part of Edinburgh’s St Giles Cathedral’s momentous 900th Anniversary celebrations in 2024.

Throughout 2024, 900 Voices invited people in Edinburgh to have conversations about belonging, connection, and community. These conversations were recorded all over the city and shared through the artwork.

What do these terms - belonging, community, connection - mean to people from various walks of life in our city? What is important? What resonates? What is our lived experience? People have generously shared their thoughts, feelings, and reflections in the artwork’s recorded conversations.

The sound installation used a variety of computer procedures to select, combine and place voices from the 900 Voices database of conversations. The computer programme made new choices for each cycle by searching the conversation database for words and themes. Sometimes single words would emerge and at other times longer reflective sections allowed listeners to encounter and engage with individual contributions. The installation worked with the rhythms and tonality of conversations in more abstract ways too. Playful echoes, choruses of frozen speech and rippling phrases were generated, activating and celebrating both the musical qualities of voices and the wonderful acoustic character of St Giles’ Cathedral.

To hear sound from the installation, find the short podcast series or see more images from the project please follow the link below

View 900 VOICES archived site