Do(n’t)

Do(n’t) is a set of three text/sound pieces produced as part of an ongoing investigation into auditory warnings—their design, use, and effects. This project belongs to a series of works exploring alarm sounds, which includes Response Time, Cry Wolf, The Sound of Sirens, and Grasping and Clinging. All the alarm sounds used in these pieces are designed from scratch, rather than sampled from existing sirens. The text animation is programmed by Tony Langford.

This project began as an interactive installation for the European Group for Organizational Studies in Barcelona, before being developed as three web-based pieces for ephemera, an independent journal exploring the theory and politics of organisation. One of these, Confidential Report, was subsequently published by Static, the interdisciplinary journal of the London Consortium.

The series was selected by curators of the Humber Mouth Literary Festival as a mildly subversive intervention for the BBC’s ‘Big Screen’ in Victoria Square, Hull. Some residents were, understandably, opposed to the installation of a giant television in their public square. Having previewed the work, the BBC refused to screen Orange Alert on grounds of political sensitivity and public safety. Furthermore, for the piece Auditory Warnings, the BBC insisted on editing out a concluding 30-second silence intended to provide respite from the screen’s audiovisual bombardment, claiming the public would think the screen was malfunctioning. Confidential Report and Auditory Warnings were eventually screened at regular intervals for two weeks.