The Texture Of Air

The Texture of Air is an art and heritage project lead by On the Record and ScreenDeep, which honours two famous London hospitals at a moment of change. Eastman Dental Hospital (EDH) and Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital (RNTNEH) both left their historic homes on the Grays Inn Road and united in a new shared facility in October 2019. As part of this project Signal-to-Noise was commisioned to create a sonically explorative device to provide a tactile interface for users to engage with and manipulate the project’s extensive sound archives. It was developed as part of a commission for The Texture of Air event at the UCLH in February 2020.

The Texture of Air is a quote from a patient who describes losing his sense of smell. This website archive stores the many recorded conversations captured over 3 years in residence at the hospitals. They took place in laboratories and libraries, clinics and chambers, even while riding a rotating vertigo chair. The archive is the home for oral history conversations with staff and patients, music, field recordings, transcripts, film and photography.