BA Sound Arts Year 3

I emailed Divfuse after attending Jez’s sound installation about the potential of seeing his talk on Sunday as I had missed the opportunity to order a ticket, as I didn’t see the promotion for it. After this, I received an email back that said I could come.

The venue again was small and we all introduced ourselves as Jez asked.

Jez began by saying that he is mainly interested in listening in situ, his practice really comes from listening and not what he can do later. The recording and releasing really is a reflection and outcome of recording rather than capture being his preference.

Jez first began his recording career at an early age, he created this contact mic from a zine he found about making a DIY piezo guitar amplifier and he put it on a fence while reading some notes, he began listening to a fence at 14, and decided that for him it was more interesting and better than himself on an instrument.

Jez continued to speak about his work and the uses of contact mics that he builds, he began by speaking about this project called. Listening matters. This was speakers in a tree playing sounds he had recorded, at first he received a lot of negative comments from visitors who complained why an artist had put speakers in a tree, to ruin the soundscape, after this experience he decided to put silent speakers, and the same amount of negative complaints were received, this was the point where he realised how much listening matters, people thought something was coming out of the speakers, even when it was silenced! Gathering material is no longer what he likes after this and his fascination for listening began.

Audible silence the effect of place,
Jez Riley French,

Another project Jez was part of where he wanted to listen to the building not focus on the sound collection, This project was very personal to Jez, he managed to sleep there and record where he and his mum used to go. Kettles yard, he recorded the building and the resonances of it, and for him, this was sound as memory.

His key tool is duration, a few hours records for some times, other times 45 minutes, but the key is 45 minutes is when the fifth audible listening begins this is when your brain stops trying to listen and accepts the sounds it is experiencing. Residences de Lumiere was an experience that he had where he mic’ed up the rooms outside of the performance, as an experimental artist himself he still is curious why we watch performances in front of the performers, why not in a different room?

Building microphones and searching for low frequencies was his next task, he felt that there was a way to capture low-end within-contact microphones, so he created his own, he also recorded fences and played examples.

Since at the start we discussed why we were here at this talk and what we wanted out of it, I communicated that I was there for my research for my portfolio and Jez kept giving me pointers towards my questions, he did mention that animals experience other sounds, bird song for us is nice, but animals can hear the vibration, the noise pollution resonating, they have expanded hearing, we think from a human-centric point of view if we consider only what we like as “natural” sounds or relaxing.

Duration, the more you listen to the more continuous change occurs Jez says, something I have encountered a lot while field recording. Sometimes it feels set up like the environment keeps changing and having dynamic interactions. But this is the truth here this is what actually happens.

Nan shephard, environmental the Living Mountain. This was a book he recommended. I have booked this out, as I am interested to read this after his recommendation.

Jez goes on to say about his love of sound outside of our attention, Micro listening he calls it. And what captures his attention is the Infinite detail, such as the rhythms inside a stone.

One way of listening, preserving what we like at the risk of others??! Something he also said.

Contact Mic allows us to get closer to their world. The world of other species.

Saving the planet for us,
Always invading, that is what we do. We should realise that saving the planet for us is not a good thing, we don’t own this planet.

Hydrophone patent, 2026 USA environmental action. Something he felt was controversial.

EQ gains hiss for hydrophone.
INDEPENDENCE MATCHINg piece. is important for maximum frequency response!

Dr Marie Po and fish
In ichthyology, women at the time were key in underwater sounds. Might be worth researching further?

Tim Lamont,
Sound of fish-eating, attracting them back.

Sound collector, trying to find an interesting sound.

Field fest. Field recording festival.

Els Viaene artist.

Peterson bat box

After this talk I felt inspired to embrace the micro tonal works I have been doing before, I think after all this reading and essay reading and practical recordings, I think this glorified idea I had of travelling with my recording equipment and capturing the most silent man free soundscapes number one arent accurate depictions. They felt wrong to do, how can I invade these spaces, and for what reason? Am I doing any good?

I think going on from this I’ve gained a further idea of what I want to do, its simple but all this research has allowed me to get to this point. I want to test out a sound map, explore durational listening and then create a piece of work that is a sound, a date, a photo, and a field note. A small booklet with a DVD.

I read this short essay on sound maps and a reflection of it from a Brazilian standpoint referencing artists from non-European communities. Here are some quotes.

This is the case for Steph Ceraso in his article “The Sight of Sound: Mapping audio”: “These Maps, then are snap shots of sound. Thus, in the process of creating more dynamic representation of the places they map, sound cartographers are also transforming sound into something static, something that we can repeatedly experience. This seems far removed from the embodied experience of encountering sound in its original environment” 

So sound maps and real sound experiences are different, one is static and can be experienced over and over again. Real sound happens in an instant.

Similarly, Traux points out that “lacking any coherent temporal perspective, and usually lacking any interpretative analysis, the listener is left trying to imagine what has been recorded and what significance it has. 

So if just listening without any idea of temporal objective definitions. It can be difficult to understand or perhaps gauge what is going on within the recording, similar to Salomé and her ideas that the recordist should be present!

Like maps, recordings operate under selection criteria defined by their creators, who act under certain circumstances. Field recordists are always being called upon to make decisions based on contingencies that arise, whether during practice in the field or concerning the critieria selected by the creators of the sound-map platforms. Field recordings have a beginning and an end, and sound itself—explicit sound, audible to huamans—can never be static. The inscription of the sound—implicit sound, which is stored (in 0s and 1s), distributed, and understood only by machines—may appear to be static, resting in the (digital) file sound archive, until it is reproduced and reaches human ears again in the form of sound waves. But it still will be a memory, a trace of the environment in which it was captured, not that environment itself. 

So field recordings are a memory of what was captured, not the actual environment itself. I couldn’t agree more. This is something that has stopped me from chasing this idea of ideal recordings, in a natural world. Isolation and serene soundscapes.

In an interview given for the study I conducted on sound maps, researcher and field recordist Rafael de Olivera offers what may be an explanation for this understanding of the recording as something that does not carry, in itself, traces of these relationships that are established during the sound recording in the field: “For a long time, photographs were not considered art, because they were taken directly from reality. Art had to be something that proposed an abstract discussion. And I think photography is somehow attached to that idea. The ones who make photographies still don’t see themselves as creators.”

The fact that a recording in itself can be seen as not being something someone has created is disappointing but also interesting. Why is that? The contrast to photos here makes me consider why I have to context or perhaps even consider what I’m doing instead of moving with intubation and really going for what I like doing with recordings, cant my emotional reaction to a sound that I’ve recorded and it’s emotional response trigger something positive be enough?

It is also important to know what is gained. In this case, it is participation, collaboration, and engagement. Also, this engagement does not happen only in “listening through the map” but fundamentally in the practice of field recording. If someone is about to upload an audio file to the sound map, they are probably already engaged in field recordings. The practice of field recording, in turn, is capable of engaging a listening process in the environment that is different from listening with no interest. 

So similar to the previous article there really are benefits to field recording, it can creative participation, collaboration and engagement. It seems that the outcome really isn’t important, but perhaps the actual work and physical interactions that are.

During my masters, I realised that this idea of a picture of reality, preservation through captures, it was a little wobbly. That is why I ended up going to cartography. Then [the Mapa Sonoro CWB] ended up with that name of sound map, but actually, it is more of a cartography, and it ended up having… a much more affective focus. Then I began to think about… investigating how these sounds affected people, what that represented.

So sound mapping led towards a greater purpose, which was thinking about how sounds affect people and what that represents.

There were some really spontaneous reactions.. someone starts singing, whistling, forgets they’re being recorded. We did another workshop in another neighbourhood and only seniors ended up going, so it was pretty interesting. In that one, there was a woman on crutches. She was a bit large, on crutches. Then there’s a pint in which we can only hear her breathing. Heavy breathing. And she also sings and stuff, whistles. And people come up to talk. “What are you doing?” I thought that was very cool. Allowing conversation was another thing we experimented with…

This is a refreshing idea on sound walks and sound mapping. Typically you have to be silent. It’s super intriguing to embrace noise and interaction when recording.

I decided to read into field recordings away from the Western European narrative showcased predominantly. I purchased a book called Making It Heard, a History of Brazilian Sound Arts.

This specific essay I discovered was of interest to me, discussing field recordings and being in the field, what it means to the individual, and why they partake in it, with specific research into these two Brazilian Artists.

Here are some quotes.

To wright, the first documented recording of the singing of a bird, performed by Karl Koch in 1899 on a wax cylinder, is also the inaugural instance of the figure of the prototypical nature sound recordist, an archetype that defined “a precedent for the next century, wherein environmental sound recordists will not be heard within the capture and mediation of nonhuman subjects and phenonmena”

This idea of silence among recordists is really interesting, why do we do this? Wright here establishes a notion to figure out why that is.

Researchers  Isobel Anderson and Tallis Rennie, there is a tendency in the sonic arts to face field recordings as bearers of objectivity, with the predominant idea that these recordings represent authentic, impartial and neutral documents. This neutrality is the result of the erasing of subjectivities in a practice that, historically, “has not clearly represented narrative of how, when, why and by whom a field recordings is made.” Instead, “The qualities of accuracy, validity and objectivity have, in many circumstances, historically been favoured over expression, interpretation and subjectivity.” In other words, “scientific knowledge has been favoured over narrative, for scientific knowledge is seen as holding within it an unshakable truth” 

Scientific knowledge is favoured over actual artistic expression, something like that field recording has within its practice. Also to consider a field recording as something objective, authentic, impartial or neutral documents is not what I would agree with. Unless we think of them relatively.

With the aim of rupturing this paradigm, the Swiss researcher and artists Salomé Voegelin lists a series of artists who, by attributing an essential role to the act of exposing their presence in their field-recording work, try to dismantle the recurrent archival and scientific impetus. More than wanting to collect, or to sonically document, an environment convincingly to Voeglin, the real ”intrigue” or poetic potential of the recordings would be in localising the “position” of the recorder, a form of “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” 

To showcase oneself is important, it can help create more interesting field recordings, Salomé here says that the interest comes from showcasing the position of the recordist.

Problematic the removal (as poetic and practical strategy) of one’s presence in recording, since for them, it is an obvious oxymoron. For instance, Wright suggests that “amongst the birdsong and pops of sonic materiality, is a notable absence. Inaudbily present within the media-animal crackles, Ludwig Koch, the recordist, is also captured somewhere and inscribed into the wax”

The absence is also recorded within it, to think they are not there is ridiculous. The recordist is present within the worker even if they are not, for example in this piece of work described by Wright.

The Japanese artist Hiroki Sasajima—whose work in the genre might stand out due to its supposed purity—describes this presence as follows: “The choice of microphone and the choice of the recording equipment are the listening points of myself: my presence in the recording is created by the recording method, the choice of place, the sense of distance, the angle of microphone and so on.”

Microphones and recording equipment not only change the perspective but also the presence of the artist to counteract Wright’s opinion on the matter. The choice of place, distance and even angle.

Field recordings can be subjective, expressive, meaningful and personal to the recordist, rather than purely objective documents of sound environments … The meaning of the sounds within these recordings may have a personal significance to their recordist, which may bring greater meaning to the overall soundscape for the listener

Field recordings can be that, it is not about collecting or recording to use for further material. Listening perhaps could be the greatest experience of the experience.

Among the recording situations that interest Cristovam are those in which he is able to perform recordings that have no explicit sonic traces of his presence or that of anyone else. “My goal,” he says, “is to be someday able to record the whole day, a cycle in which you can listen to the world without any human interference, whatever that may be.” 

Purist but interesting, I had in the past been really keen to experience this idea of no human sounds but I have encountered that perhaps it is more accurate to experience the human sounds within the world.

But why is Cristovam interested in this type of recording? To Cristovam, it is a political stance. Besides considering this to be legitimate research by itself, his search encompasses a will to oppose and a desire to have access to that which is denied to him. As the artist states: “It is not the search for silent places; it is a search what is being taken from me… I think that this is very important aesthetically and politically.” Cristovam wishes to listen to a world that is not enslaves by the human sound, because, to him “it is obvious that, no matter all the crap we are making with the world, the world itself is not ours. So, there are things that you can—and I feel it almost as a duty—search that is not from the human world”

I had never considered it a political stance, and he also considers it research for himself, sound as knowledge or knowing. Silence is being taken from him. He wants to seek this out.

 It is clear to me that Cristovam does not adopt a purist stance regarding his recordings. The most important thing for him is to include poetically in the resulting phonogram the “field” produced by his listening. In order to do so, he might include a sensible post-production process. Besides this tendency, Cristovam understands that presenting or publishing the recorded material is not part of the work per se, these are just consequences of the recordings process:

Part of his work is listening, and the consequences of it are releasing and showcasing the recordings, he does not consider himself a purist. But also a reflection of the field he hears.

Paradoxically, this helps me to imagine a function for the enormous number of works that Cristovam publishes on his Bandcamp profile: the the most adequate would be to think of that webpage as an archive of registries of works already done, works who’s essence is in the recording process. These registries function as proof that acts were performed: the act of listening at a particular place, and the act of recording per se. 

Hi work although not concentrated as pieces are a form of archival. He is showing where he’s been, and what he’s done, almost what Salomé speaks about it is more interesting to know the context of the recording and the position of the recordist and the field.

It is an idea of delving deeper in this depression of the city, but to delve deeper in an active way: instead of staying at home, suffering, I went for a walker. Also, to record is an excuse for you to go for a walk, isn’t it? So, initially, there was no such functionality [to record as a stage of an artistic project]. No type of idea, except that of going out and record.

Field recordings and recordings can take you outside and really push you to engage with the environment.

In this case, recording in the field assumed, first a sort of therapeutic function. Once the process had started, however, unforeseen interests emerged.

Listening or engaging with art is a therapeutic reflection and the outcomes can be anything.

What I would like to emphasise is that an idea such as this—central for a work such as CPdS—may reveal itself during an impromptu field-recording activity. The act of recording may be performed as stimulus for wandering and discovery. You leave the house without a destination.

I’m inspired by this idea here, and it is how I approach my field recording sessions, sometimes I think about it sometimes I go on walks and figure out what I have recorded.

I decided to follow what I learnt from Jez Riley French with his extended listening techniques and scores for listening. I agreed initially that I would go to Cuckmere Haven with seven sisters, but the equipment I was carrying was exceptionally heavy.

Before I went I loaded my equipment and found it too heavy to carry, I was curious about why I even initially took this out, does a better mic or recorder really make a better more meaningful recording? I took out the small H1N that I bought in my second year with a recently purchased Ryecote wind cover for it, and a pair of headphones, minimalist field recording I saw it as. I got on the train and arrived very late in Brighton as I spent all morning charging batteries and etc preparing to take all this equipment far away. Instead, once I got there I began cycling towards where I spent time as a child, and also an interesting area by Shoreham power station, on route I began experimenting with placing the recorder in environments as I saw Jez Riley French do, and listening to the grass move in the heavy winds.

I sat there and listened for 15 minutes, laying on the ground with my ears in between the grass. I was recording, not knowing the outcomes.

Next, I cycled by Shoreham Powerstation to a quiet beach and spent 30 minutes recording the waves and beaches of a quiet serene area.

Again practising this extended listening technique that Jez Riley French speaks about, the micro listening within his work Is what I was practising. After this, I followed towards what the locals call the hot pipes, where steam exerts itself from the power station into the water to cool down. I did the same, climbed the fence and deep a 15-minute recording. I wish I could have carried the larger equipment but throughout this it made me reconsider why, is this capitalism within my works, telling me that bigger is better? That I need the big £2000 recorder and microphone, is it actually better? I enjoy cycling and taking things with me, not driving or public transport, perhaps the equipment isn’t for me.

The wind started picking up and I approached two Wind turbines, I did the same, exploring extended listening and micro soundscapes. I left with a new idea and ideas, I didn’t go where I wanted to, does this mean I have to go far and wide and use the best equipment for my work to be good? Does location matter, or are these ghosts present within our soundscapes, am I chasing this idea of a perfect man-hidden soundscape, or should I embrace the noise as Jez says? Chasing ghosts within our cities and our human-inhabited soundscapes, what can we learn from listening, what is present, and what isn’t?

I also took photos with my film camera, which I hope will help the recordings, and I wrote this field note.

I could see the rain approaching from the east. Sat between two turbines the rattle of the fence and loose bolts.

The turbines sound like whips in the air, caressed by every touch of the wind.

Two large towers with spinning blades, rusted from the sea breeze, salt winning against metal.

Towering over me, as big as a giant’s hands.

I needed to acquire more equipment as my windshield broke and I wanted to go to Cuckmere Haven for recordings, and potentially back to Epping Forest with the correct equipment.

I borrowed a Sound Devices Mix Pre 4 and Sennheiser 418 for the mid-side recording for ambience, and a light stand which I researched for the best mic stands to record outside.

I want to capture high quality ambience’s to showcase these ghosts and prepare for this trip to see the rainforests eventually.

After his lecture on field notes, I decided to buy his short book, which contains a huge collection of his field notes, as inspiration for my own field notes.

These two field notes are my favourites. I’m interested to see how my field notes will end, shall I create a small Zine with photos and notes to accompany my field recordings? durational recordings, photos, and notes. Perhaps that is the outcome.