"Space differs from place, as place connects sociality to spatiality in everyday life." (Lefebvre)

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.

Why: 'Architecture and Music'?

The effect of architecture on sound is one that has shaped the development of music itself. Music was and has been composed for specific spaces, and each space has its own acoustic properties. This has been both a conscious, and an unconscious development, and has involved pre-existing as well as constructed spaces.

In a very direct example of the relationship between styles of music and the spaces in which they are heard, David Byrne points out how the drums and chanting of African village songs fit perfectly in an outdoor open space, whereas the melismatic meanderings of Gothic choral music only really work in the acoustic reverb chamber of a stone cathedral. The space shapes the style of music and the delivery of its content; the culture then works within that, but only secondarily. When music evolved from religious worship and began to be recognised as an art form in itself, the composer wrote for the space in which it would be heard simply because that would be the only place that it would be heard.

Yet curiously before even this, natural spaces had a hand in shaping what would even become to be known as 'music'. According to many in the field of acoustic archeology (aka: 'archaeoacoustics'), before even a conscious collaboration between sound and space: natural design played a part in the shaping of ritual and culture that led to musical practice. The echoing, reverberant cave spaces where tribes gathered for shelter and then socially, had acoustic properties that inspired and encouraged tribal rituals, and hence allowed an emerging culture to develop. Cave painting and visual cave art are often found in cave spaces where unique acoustic properties abound - often relating to the image itself: for example a bird image in a place where there is a flutter echo effect.

Therefore since the dawn of civilisation, the space, the sound, and of course the technology facilitating architecture have always been inextricably linked.

What really is 'the sound of the streets'..?

“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.” - Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities.

All you need to do is start, and countless revelations lie on the other side of a sensory awakening that can be gained from  the simple practice of - listening. 

From that point on, the world will reveal itself to you in scrolls, in artefacts, in histories and symphonies of sound that are ever unfolding in this constantly living, changing universe - a universe that always offers a point of contact through awareness.

'Put The Needle On The Record' (2012)

Part of the portfolio for my Master's degree (2012).