From 'Invisible Cities' by Italo Calvino:

“As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. A description of [the city] as it is today should contain all [the city's] past. The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.”

"Space is a vital part of the battle for control and surveillance of individuals, but it is a battle and not a question of domination."

Foucault: Space, Knowledge and Power

Frideswide Square Sound Map

Field recording is a way of questioning space, and a way of investigating some of what Foucault reveals above.

With a modern day WAV recorder, the power to record and capture sounds is literally in the hands of the individual. When we investigate with recorders the world in which we exist, we are able to see quite clearly the different kinds of life that are going on in the shared spaces, and the quality of life we are all living differently individually, and also as a whole.
Power, and the control of sound in the form of surveillance are often ideas that are associated with the State. Yet field recording can become a form of surveillance that can be turned back onto society - questioning it itself.

Below is a sound map that I made in 2010. I visited the site on many occasions over 5-6 months and made recordings with hand-held recorders, contact microphones, mechanically filtered recordings, submerged recorders; and I also recorded electromagnetic activity in this area.

Below here is a 'play list' of the sounds in the sound map. Clicking on the sounds in the playlist means that you can make a mix between the locations in the map above, and the sounds below.