Again a further text that speaks about the discourse on field recording practice, especially the silencing of the recordist. Here are some quotes and reflections.
Recent sonic arts discourse has engaged with the artistic practice of field recording, calling for scholars and practitioners to acknowledge the presence of the recordist as an active agent in the field
I think its interesting to see that there has been recent discourse, this puts my portfolio 2 in the current discourse and a trending issue.
Through the radio work I voice personal reflections evoked by listening back to the field recordings I had made, and the music I had discovered while in Rio. The voice-over to the radio show was recorded without a script and in one take. As such, it perhaps captured a personal sense of the emotions that I now associated with the field recordings and songs.
I like this idea, of speaking over field recordings, talking about your memories of them.
Here, ‘fieldwork’ is understood to be an artistic-ethnographic practice that includes observation, documentation, interaction and participation with an identified ‘field’ – achieved primarily through listening and sound recording.
Again I think it’s good to see that fieldwork of field recordings has different definitions for multiple people.
Crossovers between sound arts practice and anthropology are considered, particularly the work of Steve Feld and Ernst Karel. ‘Annotated’ sound art works that reveal the process of fieldwork through field recording (Cox and Carlyle)
Steven Feld and his process of showcasing the field recording and admitting it was not perfect to what he could here, really does draw the comparisons between recordist and artistic practice, from anthropological uses and artistical uses.
As in ethnography, those undertaking field recording are now encouraged to be increasingly relexive. The choices over what sounds one might record, where, when, how and crucially, why, all become much more signiicant factors.
I agree, something I’ve considered within my own dissertation and now within this practice-based research project.
between art and anthropology, noting that field recording might act as a crucial bridge. He says: ‘for me, art-making is something that could be central to anthropological thinking. But it has never happened. Field recording could be an important piece of making the connection’ (Lane and Carlyle, 2013: 211).
So field recording is an artistic medium that could be a bridge to anthropology, where artistic practices coincide with anthropology is super correct.
Schneider & Wright support the art-making as documentation, describing anthropology as being in a state of ‘inertia’:
So anthropology is stuck within its ways, why can’t creative artistic practices also be it?
Ethnomusicologist Jeff Todd Titon (2008) proposes a rigorous redefinition of basic fieldwork to be ‘no longer viewed principally as observing and collecting… but as experiencing and understanding’ (p. 25).
So swapping the view of the recordist and considering their own position within it is important, let us switch roles to experiencing and understanding rather than observing and collecting. Something I want to do with my field recordings.
He suggests that personal fieldwork diaries ‘become useful repositories for critical reflection on the research process as it is unfolding … fieldwork diaries act as the place where personal stories of rapport building and strange encounters are recorded’ (p. 432). My own emotional and critical reflections on the continual unfolding of fieldwork can be heard, for example, throughout the recorded voice-over in Rio: An Outsider Inside, and in questioning my position as recordist-composer through text annotations in Carioca Sound Stories.
I think the fieldwork diary being important is something I’ve recently considered and what I will do for my final project 2. I will incorporate my reflections and my memories, and my emotional response and keep it updated.
The act of field recording may be considered to contain fundamental compositional decision-making at its core. The time, location, choice of equipment, microphone placement, length of recording and number of repeat visits made to a site are decisions made by the recordist-composer. All of these decisions may greatly affect the outcome of the sounds then presented or composed. Therefore, perhaps field recording should be considered an act of composition in itself.
Exactly! Field recording as a composition is how I feel, to consider it just as collecting? Not understanding that it takes a considerable act to place a microphone and to think and listen.
Justin Bennett’sRaw Materials (2011) is an auto-ethnographic composition where sound documents the relationship between place and person, site and social. This work for stereo sound and text consists of a collection of unrelated field recordings chosen at random from the artist’s archive. These are played back seemingly to both the composer and listener in ‘real time’, while a typed text appears on the video screen – a letter addressed to ‘J’. The text, written by the composer, reflects on his personal associations with the sounds. He tells us in the text that, ‘with the sounds come smells, stories, feelings’. As the audience listens to each sound, the text continues: I ask myself: where was it? When was it? What is happening? Who was with me? How did I feel? Why did I record this? What does it make me feel now? Throughout the piece, Bennett answers each question in an informal and personal way. He makes short practical descriptions while simultaneously considering the retrospective memory and current personal impact of the same sound on himself as a composer. This is an example of a reflexive ethnographic approach to field recording, and its presentation in the form of art and performance. The sounds act as field notes, later heard accompanied by Barz’s ‘headnotes’ voice: a self-conscious and self-critical form of re-reading his sonic diary entries
So we must share more to make the recordings interesting and this project by Justin dictates that. And that it is doable.
When addressing how I might begin to communicate the knowledge gained through the process of listening and recording, I questioned whether these recordings might have relevance to anyone but myself. As Salome Voeglin writes: ‘Some field recording is thus incredibly boring and irrelevant for all but the recordist: the exotica of the source replacing the idiosyncrasy of the material recorded, the pleasures and complexities of which are hidden and inaccessible to an audience standing by and listening in’ (2014: 16). A moment inCarioca Sound Stories echoes this sentiment: I find it hard… to make this recording speak / to reveal something, other than what I know (08.00-08.22)
This quote shares the issues with field recordings, without any further context they can come across like this, boring, and irrelevant. This is a huge challenge for myself when using field recordings.