Here are some quotes.
A field recording made using the method of ‘anything goes, just stick your mic in the mud’ misses this tension of transformation. Without its impetus, listeners stare in puzzlement at sleeve notes and press releases trying to intellectually grasp the significance and joy of what is absent.
I get this from other artists’ works sometimes, where I really have to question what I’m listening to, how it’s affecting me, what are the reasons for it, and how much context does one need to enjoy a piece of work?!
Exciting field recording does not record the field but produces a plurality of fields. It neither abandons the reality of the recorded, nor does it take it for granted, but works with it, responds to it, understands it as one imprint in the landscape made by the body of the recordist and retraced tentatively by the listener. This listener in turn generates a new imprint between the heard and the recorded, listening to the authenticity of a particular rendition rather than its source, and embracing interpretation as part of the actuality of the real. That is at least what I consider to be exciting.
Responding to the field whilst engaging with reality and working with it. A great thought. I couldn’t agree more with this quote
Mark Peter Wright’s recordings are quite literally such imprints: photographs, words and sound – showing us not so much the field as his position within it and reminding us of our own.
Something I also hope to bring with my recordings. To have a selection with more than just audio, but a response to the field I engaged with, these sounds to me are captured moments of engagement ready for the listener to also respond to.
The work of Ximena Alarcón and Christina Wegener, for example, have turned field recording into a practice of social and cultural interaction, and Felicity Ford as well as Antye Greie use it to invite participation and foster exchange. And while Patrick Farmer morphs the field into performance and compositional processes, producing scores and books that do not necessarily lead to music but to an expanded field, Davide Tidoni listening to the boundaries of urban spaces by popping balloons.
Something I also responded to within my dissertation, which was the work of Ximena, how she made field recordings a collective practice, I’m interested to see how I can apply this to my recordings.
They mark a post-humanist sensibility where we do not seek to own the sounds of this world, to know and to have them, but understand ourselves to be part of its soundscape, not at its centre but simultaneous with it, sounding with and through it a reality that is plural and passing.
I think this is an important section of it, I think through listening and capturing field records I’ve also come across and reflected on these statements, I’ve noticed my own location within the soundscape and I find myself sitting in a temporal experience.
Mabye we should stop recording altogether and simply listen. But I believe the future of field recording lies in the tension created by transforming the heard through participation, collaboration, expansion and play, through which we can try a humbler humanity of shared spaces and renegotiate what is real.
This is similar to Jez Riley French. He also says similarly, he almost does not want to record, listening is the main focus and the recordings are just an outcome. I really enjoyed this article. I will now try to seek to create field recordings that have interaction and participation.