London Sound Survey

One of those great finds that happen on the internet. London Sound Survey is packed with ideas and information and most importantly for a phonography site, sounds!
Well worth a visit.

Spacepilots

Another interesting organisation whose work relates to place. Spacepilots.

Holly Rumble

This is an interesting place-related work, One Minute Bird Watching.

Transition

Transition: The London Art Scene In The Fifties was an exhibition at The Barbican in 2002.
This is a particularly interesting period for the research on this blog as it is the antecedent to a huge amount of the work I am influenced by.
What I liked a lot about this exhibition was the increasing amount of mixed media that worked its way into the art.
No sound, of course, but mixed and varied nevertheless.
I remember being struck by the sculptures of William Turnbull and the collages of Edward Wright.

Aerial Perspective

After looking at more Lowry paintings today, I thought about this phenomenon. It will be worth a try and see if sounds that have less contrast and depth will produce the distancing effect as this does with colour.

L S Lowry

Easily overlooked, thanks to the popularity and fame of his 'matchstick' men figures, are the wonderful landscapes by Lowry. Simplification and abstraction carried out to great effect.

Humphrey Spender

Back in Germany and able to get to my book case at last!
I have just been through Lensman, a book of Humphrey Spender's photographs of England 1932 to 1952 and what a fantastic collection it is. This book is probably more social observation than place, but there are some astounding images here nevertheless.
It is very easy to forget what a bloody miserable decade the 50s was. In fact, after the horrors of the war and the crushing cost in lives, property and infrastructure, the poverty was felt by most until about the mid-60s. Much of that burden, it seems to me to be borne by the working class. This poverty and hardship was reported by Spender in his work for newspapers.
It is very easy to forget that just over a generation ago there were still Public and Saloon bars in pubs and that relatively few people enjoyed the luxury of fridges, washing machines, televisions etc.until the 70s.
These days, we create a right tantrum if we can't get to The Maldives on time, 50 years ago, a 6-day week and unpaid leave was common.

Listening to the Building

A rather interesting site-specific piece by Ian Baxter I came upon this evening.

Wait 2

I have re-worked the sound for this little film and am now much happier. I don't want these to be entertaining visually, more to act as a vehicle upon which the sound should ride.
It is a bit of a difficult balance to get right, especially as most people are so visually aware and sonically neutral.
I hope the hammer and bolster are suitably incongruous.

Cafe Concrete

I play this from time to time as there are some interesting sonic representations of place. From the documentary to the musical and the realistic to the abstract.
I'm pretty sure this was a Wire magazine give-away. Thanks Wire.

Hi-Fi, Lo-Fi.

More dipping into R. Murray Schafer's The Soundscape has got me thinking about his ideas of lo-fi and hi-fi. To paraphrase him liberally, the lo sounds are those that are perceived to us as lower frequencies, but more importantly as continuous drone-like and non-natural sounds. The hi-fi relates to shorter, sharper sounds.
All this relates to Flat Lines noted earlier.
I do think this idea of the natural and the mechanical existing in parallel is really interesting. Maybe there is a way to corrupt or exploit this symbiosis.

Christina Kubisch

I listened today to Christina Kubisch's CD Five Electrical Walks. These are all sounds gathered with custom-made microphones to record electromagnetic fields. For this Cd she says the tracks are mixed pieces of audio that are not processed in any way.
Naturally, this is a composition and the walks she organizes where listeners wear these special recording headphones would have much more emphasis upon the place where one was, but as a second-hand listener, so to speak, I found the pieces pretty interesting.
It is always difficult this, the idea of removing the sounds from a place. What happens in that process?

Human Geography

Through reading and observation, I realize that my phonographic interests are taking me on a parallel journey into the world of human geography.
This was a discipline I was unaware of until recently and am now becoming quite fascinated with.
I have recently been introduced to the work of Yi-Fu Tuan, a noted authority on the concept of place.
Here is a link to the British Library pertaining to this topic.

phonography.org

I have been listening to 5 CDs from phonography.org this week to try and get to the kernel of what I do and don't want included in my pieces.
I find myself switching off unconsciously from the pieces that simply document a place.
That said, I do prick my ears up sometimes at the quality of some peoples recordings, Peter Cusack's Baikal Ice and Chris Watson's Outside The Circle Of Fire to name just two.

Flat Lines

R Murray Shafer, in The Soundscape drew my attention to this phenomena.
He identified sounds, almost exclusively associated with the industrial or machine age. The Flat Line in sound is the result of repeated sounds such as motors and machines. Prior to the industrial revolution, sounds made in construction, craft and agriculture consisted of small sounds. Small from the point of view of the sustain element in their sound envelope. Imagine horses hooves, blacksmiths anvils or masons chisels. These would all have been short, abrupt sounds. Now, machines do the work for us and their sound is a monotonous repetition.

Place

Tim Cresswell's book, Place; A Short Introduction has been stimulating my mind this weekend.
I have been dipping into a few books about Human Geography without much success for this project, but Cresswell's book is really interesting.
As it says, it is an introduction, and for me a really interesting way of looking at my project from a slightly different perspective.
A couple of quotes from the book that pertain directly to my thinking:
"We do not live in landscapes - we look at them" Or 'hear' in this case.
"Naming is one of the ways space can be given meaning and become place".
'What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value..." Cresswell quoting Yi-Fu Tuan.

Surrealism

I am becoming increasingly interested in this idea of the sonically surreal. I rejected surrealism for decades as it always seemed so frivolous to me, but, again thanks to the calming influence of the English surrealists over our more bold European cousins, I am beginning to see its application having a potential in my work.
I have been looking in particular at the earlier experiments by Paul Nash and Roland Penrose. It struck me that their surrealistic tendences served their work better once they had experimented with 'full-blown' surrealism and then used that experience to suffuse the following work with surrealistic elements. Often the surreal and the abstract merge, and for me, this is a benefit to the work.

Civilisation 3

Kenneth Clark really made a wonderful set of programmes 40 years ago.
I was most taken with the episode pertaining to the Renaissance and the gradual evolution of landscape painting.

Civilisation 2

Clarke says something interesting in programme 2 about pilgrimages...
" Pilgrimages were undertaken in hope of Heavenly rewards. In fact, they were often used by the Church as a form of penitence, a spiritualised form of extradition. The point of a pilgrimage was to look at relics. The Medieval pilgrim really believed that by contemplating a reliquiae containing the head or even the finger of a saint he could persuade that saint to intercede on his behalf with God".

Civilisation

Whilst not strictly relevant to this project, I am re-watching the DVD collection, Civilisation, first on the BBC in 1969. Written and presented by Kenneth, later Lord Clark is a brilliant example of the last vestiges of that ultra-posh English person.
Lord Clarke has that slightly distorted, slightly horsey dental configuration that only the very posh seem to be able to carry off.
He is a passionate art historian however, so I'm happy, what ever his dental proclivity.

Wait

I decided yesterday evening to experiment as much as possible with short films that pertained directly to a place and then make them work with some sound design.
Hard as it is to admit, as I rue the concept of sound as the poor relation of vision, I find it much easier to have a piece of film and then add audio.
I will be using very simple, almost banal visuals to begin with and work to create sound design that explores and exploits the sound of the place.

Paul Nash

I was reminded today of a great exhibition I visited earlier this year at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, Paul Nash: The Elements.
I was looking through the book for the black and white photographs he took. These, like John Piper's and Humphrey Spender's are such simple and gentle images, yet all suffused with a bitter melancholia.
I want to think about this emotion in my sound pieces.

Geoffrey Jones

I bought this wonderful DVD the other week, Geoffrey Jones: The Rhythm Of Film. It contains 9 films of Geoffrey Jones, a documentary and information film maker. These date from 1955 to 2004 and are all superb.
Snow is especially good. It is an almost surreal portrayal of a snowed-in railway system and features a strange kind of pub-rock soundtrack that has been manipulated by Daphne Oram in the most strange but agreeable style suggesting a wild post production session spent over-indulging with an EQ machine. Ravishing, in my opinion.

Farnham

Farnham in Surrey will be my next location for The Sound Of Place project. It is located about 10 miles North East from Alton where I recorded before. A larger town than Alton, so I am expecting to be returning there once I have explored this weekend.
I think I will explore the castle and other historic locations first and see where that leads.

Sound and Music

Sound and Music have an interesting features page called Places. Just as you would imagine, it is about particular places. Big places. They attest to being interested in more contributions which is great. May run The Pilgrims' Way by them.

Pilgrim's Way 2

Digging a little further into the subject to collect my thoughts and put some things into order.
To get to the basics, I am so far considering some of these locations on the route. Winchester and Canterbury cathedrals will, naturally, be there as the start and end, and Alton has secured a place.
Here is a list of other possibilities, New Arlesford, Bentley, Farnham, Guildford, Dorking, Reigate, Gomshall, Merstham, Chaldon, Godstone, Limpsfield, Westerham, Otford, Kemsing, Wrotham, Tottiscliffe, Cuxton, Pewley Down, St Martha's Hill, The Chantries, Rochester, Burnham, Boxley, Detling, Herrietsham, Lenham, Charring, Wye, Chilham.
You will find a nice introduction to the Pilgrims' Way by F. C. Elliston-Erwood from where I purloined the wonderfully Neo-Romantic image above.

Powell and Pressburger 2

Tonight I have watched The Battle Of The River Plate. I would describe this as more sentimental than Romantic, but considering its release date, November 1956 ( just 2 years after rationing) and its overt patriotism, Powell and Pressburger still manage to evoke the majesty and power of the sea and man's frailty within the world. It would seem that no matter how serious the situation, and world war is pretty bloody serious, Man is dwarfed by his surroundings. Powell and Pressburger still impress me with their work.

Cut and Splice 2

After considering the Thursday night Cut and Splice, I am aware of the significance of performance and/or presentation of the work.
I commented below on John Wynne's installation, but think the work of Nicolas Collins and Tetsuo Kogawa was made stronger by the performative angle to their work.
No matter how much artists want to have their work considered just for its own sake, the more accessible it is and accepting of the listeners'/viewers' requirements it is, it seems to me, the better the work is received.
Obviously this should not mean a simplification or dumbing-down of the work, rather, a note for me as an artist that not everybody knows what I am on about and a recognition of that would be sensible.

49th Parallel

I've been watching 49th Parallel, another wonderful Powell and Pressburger film and was struck by the statement in the script; "Don't be a sentimental fool".
I realize the context, but shift that statement to one side a moment, delete "don't" and we have another interesting way of considering art and the Romantic.

Cut and Splice

Yesterday evening was the first of 3 events all of which afford the visitor time to see and hear John Wynne's installation, Beating Tones and Flapping Wings. As with John's previous installation at Beaconsfield and now at the Saachi Gallery, this is a visually arresting sound art piece.
John uses a 440Hz sine tone on each of 30 cassette players which create Beat Frequencies in the listeners' ears. Another phenomena, the Shepard Tone produces in the adjacent room is broadcast back to the radio/cassette players in the first.
I was interested in the exploitation of the sonic effects as I have been dipping into Sonic Experience for inspiration on the application and effect of other sonic phenomena that I can employ in my project.

Alton

I laid down the first track of this project today. Actually quite a nice thing to have something concrete as the starting point. It is just one long exterior track recorded with an air mic.
This track, Alton is the piece that is all about steam.
I have just downloaded Wave Editor software, of which I have as a trial package to see if some experimentation with it will be useful. Just used it for an hour, and I have found a couple of neat tools. I'm going to really have to give it some time though. Like everything.

Watercress Line 2

Spent the day on the wonderful Watercress Line railway yesterday. I have several hours of recordings. What was noticeable throughout the day was the constant hiss of escaping steam. Every recording I have is couched in hiss. I thought it was the equipment for a while, but no, it is everywhere!
I was a bit disappointed at first, but thought that in fact, hiss would be the sonic marker for this location. Layers of hiss.

Justin Bennett

I listened to Bennett's CD Noise Map today to get some more thoughts and ideas about how to represent field recordings and was quite taken with this.
It is not a CD I would say I like listening to, but I really like his use of processing. It is in-your-face stuff with all sorts of noises and sounds jumping at you from all angles. Some sound realistic, some sound processed and some are delightfully ambiguous. He makes no apparent attempt to smooth the pieces along and has no problem in rushing or dawdling the pace. A very stimulating sound work.

Containment Project

Looks like this new project of mine will be going ahead in January 2011. I will be curating an exhibition at the London College of Communication where I study, entitled Containment.
I will be looking for sound artists from the college Sound Art department to sonically represent the concept of containment within a metal cargo container for 5 hours.
I have just set up a blog, Containment Project. Please keep looking for updates.

Cassettes

I'm looking forward to getting my cassette tape piece fine tuned. I had a great evening a couple of days ago with Jonny Hill where we moved to a more leisurely-paced cassette and vinyl based duo piece. It was interesting how we have concurrently, both learned to do less.
I used a selection of cassettes I had recorded in the summer and I was really pleased with the way they worked with Jonny's sounds. I used quite a bit more processing that usual and was happy also with this experiment. I managed to dig up some really deep bass tones

Framing

I was just thinking about framing again as I looked at the cover of Badlands, (see below).
I wonder if that arresting image would have had the same impact if one had been there. Because of the tree's exposed roots and low branches, the effect of the photograph is of an explosion. Full of energy.
Without the frame, would that energy have been so noticeable? Does the limitations of the media have an effect on the subject?

Pilgrim's Way

Pilgrims' Way got the thumbs up today and so I am full steam ahead with it. An appropriate term as this Sunday I will be recording on the Watercress Line. (see below).
I have to now select and appraise six to ten suitable locations along the pilgrims' route for my work.
I want each piece to be able to relate to those next to it in some sonic capacity so will have to think of interesting and pertinent ways to do this.
My intention with this piece is that it will be documented on a CD, so needless to say, the whole work will be 70 minutes or so maximum length.

Neo-Romanticism

Just a few lines to define what I mean when referring to Neo-Romantic.
All information here is from The Spirit Of Place by Malcolm Yorke. A wonderful book.
One of, if not the first use of the term Neo-Romantic came from reviewer, Raymond Mortimer. Writing in the New Statesman, 28th March 1942, when describing the various groups of artists working in Britain at that time.
"He thought them more traditional in outlook than the Surrealists and Abstractionists insofar as they admitted the claims of both the senses and the intellect". The Neo-Romantics of the late 30's were seen by many to be rebelling "against the Francophiliac preachings of Roger Fry", yet never venturing as far as "geometrical abstraction" of Rouault or Cherico.
Two important exhibitions have helped to secure this movement's place in art history, "The British NeoRomantics 1935-1950" (Fisher Fine Art) and 'A Paradise Lost - The Neo-Romantic imagination in Britain 1935 - 1955" (Barbican Art gallery).

Major Project 3

I think the cards finally fell in to place this evening.
I have spent hours on this, reading, referring, cross-referencing and relying on luck and it all comes down to The Pilgrims' Way.
The Pilgrims' Way starts at Winchester Cathedral , and, as the character, Mr Culpepper says in A Canterbury Tale; "These Pilgrims came to Canterbury to ask for a blessing or to do penance".
Winchester Cathedral has works by Graham Sutherland.
St Swithun, a former bishop of Winchester Cathedral has his festival day on the 15th of July. My birthday!
Alton, where I will be recording this weekend is on the route.
These coincidences, plus many properly researched connections have given me at last the core for my project.

Edmund Burke

I came across Burke through researching the Powell and Pressburger films.
This quote from George P Landow serves to describe the aesthetics and philosophy behind some commentator's explanation of Neo-Romanticism's ideals.
"In addition to the emphasis which he places on terror, Burke is important because he explained the opposition of beauty and sublimity by a physiological theory. He made the opposition of pleasure and pain the source of the two aesthetic categories, deriving beauty from pleasure and sublimity from pain. According to Burke, the pleasure of beauty has a relaxing effect on the fibers of the body, whereas sublimity, in contrast, tightens these fibers. Burke's use of this physiological theory of beauty and sublimity makes him the first English writer to offer a purely aesthetic explanation of these effects; that is, Burke was the first to explain beauty and sublimity purely in terms of the process of perception and its effect upon the perceiver."
I like the notion of the energy generated from two opposites bound together and will seriously consider this in my work.

John Cage

I should have revisited this sooner, really. The title, Imaginary Landscapes says it all as far as my project is concerned.
What Cage is doing here that I will not be doing is creating sounds for an imagined place not a physical place, but I very much admire his wide use of instruments and sound objects.
I like the idea that some of the final works could be enhanced by imagined, improvised parts.

David Tudor

Rainforest is much closer to the aesthetic I am looking for. In this piece, Tudor has created the impression of a rainforest through the playing of sounds through ceiling-mounted cables into objects that then reverberate. The listener can move in and around these sound objects.
I am also attracted to the visual element of the piece and the involvement of the audience.
Whilst differing in sound source from me, the idea of sounds played randomly and those sounds then affecting the whole to give an impression of a place 'resonates' with me.

Annea Lockwood

As I write this I am listening to Lockwood's CD, A Sound Map Of The Hudson River. It is an "aural journey" from the source of the river downstream to the Atlantic.
This is the type of representation of place that I wish to avoid. People like Lockwood have made these interesting and representational works already, and even though she talks about recording rivers because they create a "special state of mind and body", it is more document than art work.
What is interesting however are the many non-river sounds on the CD. I find that more appealing actually as I have to listen harder to imagine their source.

Watercress Line

One of the towns on the Pilgrims Way, as they travelled to Canterbury was Alton in Hampshire.
I thought about this pilgrim homage and wondered if this could be something to intertwine into my project.
To further my research, I am going to Alton this weekend and will be recording in and around the town.
As a particularly English thing, I shall be going on and recording on the steam railway that runs from Alton to Arlesford. This railway line, when it used to run to London was, and is called The Watercress Line.

Powell and Pressburger

I took delivery today of the 11 DVD Powell and Pressburger collection.
I have been dipping in and out of Neo-Romantic Landscapes. An aesthetic approach to the films of Powell and Pressburger, by Stella Huckenhall in which she comments upon the landscape aesthetic of these writer/producer/directors and I really wanted to have them to reference my landscape project.
I think I'm going to start with A Canterbury Tale and see what happens.

Badlands

I found this book today. It is a rather interesting overview of contemporary landscape representation. There are some essays in there and features on the work of about a score of artists.
As is usual, this book is concerned with the visual, but does include works using digital media as well as installation and intervention.

Hawksmoor

My recent dalliances with English romanticism have brought me to a point where I have the sirings of an idea. Hawksmoor.
There are a seven churches in the East End of London designed or part-designed by Nicolas Hawksmoor. The sonic edge I have been seeking is evinced in these magnificent buildings.
Today the kernel of an idea flourished when I thought to ask a colleague of mine, Robin Higgins to improvise a vocal work around which I will construct a sound piece centered in a Hawksmoor church.
Happily for me, Robin was very interested in the project.
I need to buy a copy of Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor and re-read it as soon as possible!

Conor Kelly

The DVD that accompanied and formed the catalogue to Conor Kelly's two exhibitions in 2004 pertain directly to my idea of the sound of place.
In his work Sound and Music, Kelly has taken a film of a music shop on a London High Street and added a rather gauche yet strangely seductive and melancholy sound to it.
I highly recommend you that a look if you can find a copy.

John Betjeman

Just looked through a DVD, Betjeman Revisited. There are some really inspiring scenes and quotes in this great video. Betjeman sometimes come across as a bit of an anachronism these days, but having his obvious love of Britain, British towns and landscape to the fore, I can see a lot to be learned in the coming months from this quintessential Englishman.

Kinetics

I need to be doing a bit of research into this area. It struck me the other day that I should be looking at sculpture more attentively with a view to considering the sonic qualities of structures that have moving parts.
I first got this idea from Barbara Hepworth's Oval Form, (above) and then looked at other English sculptors and then to Force Fields, a catalogue from a kinetic art exhibition at the Hayward Gallery a decade or so ago.
I need to look further into Max Eastley's work and it will probably be useful to reference Harry Partch too as I ponder the idea of sound, sculpture and place.

Major Project 2

Well, it is all systems go now. I had a good tutorial today and encouragement about the project.
I'm concentrating on four main areas, performance, phonography, collage and improvisation. My immediate work will be at an improvisation workshop this weekend. This will not only be a bloody good experience, but will inform my dissertation and practical project.
the workshop will be in rural Wales, so that will give me a great opportunity to get into and amongst the landscape.
I will be recording audio of course, but also am interested in camera recording and sketching as a documentary tool.

Major Project

I presented the ideas I had about this project today to my peers and tutors. I have no idea yet how the tutors received it, and actually precious little peer feedback, but I have more confidence now having talked about it.
Through years of exposure to this genre, I am more certain that I am working in the right direction.
Note to self: Remember to reread The Englishness of English Art.

Magritte

Another genre I believe will yield some interesting finds is surrealism. In particular, I have been considering Magritte thanks to a chapter in Landscape In Western Art, by Malcolm Andrews where he considers the framing of a painting of a landscape. I was drawn to this idea of the artist already framing the work visually as well as practically.
I like the triple-bluff that Magritte calls when he paints a canvas, in front of a window and then the whole is framed. It is in a way the beginning of a kind of vortex where the end is never quite known.
I think sonically that would be a rather interesting concept. To try and discover a way for the sound to frame itself or in some way be enveloped by itself.
Magritte said of this "The simultaneous existence in two different spaces is like living simultaneously in the past and in the present, as in cases of deja vu".

Peter Lanyon

I have been dipping into a new book I just bought about Peter Lanyon. There are loads of pictures of his work and also his sculpture which one sees less of. Lanyon's work is almost exclusively landscape and the style of his work describes well the attitude I have about The Sound Of Place.

Fauna

I was thinking today about the lack of fauna in much of the art I like. This is particularly true of human beings. I am attracted to spaces and places that relate to human design, their intervention and construction as well as those which flora has either repelled or embraced, or indeed those places of the extreme, such as deserts and vast oceans. Yet the absence of fauna seems to add to, rather than subtract from to the gravitas of the work for me.
Like the Romantics that precede me, the vastness, the sheer and unforgiving power of nature has me in its thrawl. But, in order for me to participate rather than to observe, I wish to distill this tempestuousness into a delicious, yet modest Englishness.
It is with this parochial ideal that I shall set about my project.

Commencement

Here is the first in as series of blogs that will chart the research and practice of creating the sounds of place. To anoint this blog, I add a beautiful painting by John Craxton, typical of the imagery that inspires this project.