Site: WA + FC (Ballston) is an original audio composition composed and created by Hays + Ryan Holladay in collaboration with the Ballston BID as part of Public Displays of Innovation. Site: WA + FC (Ballston) is a work intended for the Ballston area of North Arlington, Virginia with ambient audio passages geo-tagged from Wilson Blvd to Fairfax Drive and from N. Randolph St. to N. Vermont.
The Holaday brothers have created location-aware apps for sites like Central Park in New York City and The National Mall in Washington DC. For Site WA + FC (Ballston), a much smaller area, the two took a more focused approach and created a single ambient composition for the space that changes in subtle ways. The arrangement of the piece shifts based on the listeners proximity to either Fairfax Drive or to Wilson Blvd, the former a sonic representation of Ballston’s past with sounds based on instrumentation from over a century ago. The latter points to Ballston’s current and future development, using contemporary instrumentation based on the same composition. For much of the space, the two blend seamlessly in dynamic ways.
The work’s title, Site: WA + FC (Ballston), refers to the Fairfax train line of the Washington, Arlington + Fall Church Railway that used to run directly through Ballston with a stop near where the Ballston metro entrance is today. Sounds of distant trains passing through can be faintly heard from time to time when the listener is near the Metro entrance.
For more information about the Ballston BID and other Public Displays of Innovation projects, please visit www.ballstonbid.com. For more information of Hays + Ryan Holladay, visit www.hrholladay.com