I believe that my ideas generated from my research on ‘La Ravissement de Frank N. Stein’ and ‘Donda’ have sat in my mind a while longer and evolved slightly. Put simply, the concept of an artist being misunderstood by others as well as misunderstanding themselves and the world around them is all to do with perception. The perception of the world from your lens, and the world’s perception of you through its lens.
With this in mind I felt like my idea for this project was becoming more concrete, and I thought the best way to start generating some actual sound would be to document me interacting with the world around me. I decided to take a trip to Greenwich and walk along the Thames after Rory, one of our technicians, recommended that it was a great place for recording the environment without too much interruption.
These are some pictures I took on my phone of the location, as well as some pictures that are more centred around my reaction to the environment, such as textures of materials and compositions rather that documentation. I felt it was important to document how I was interacting with the world surrounding me through visual means as well as sound recordings, as it is all the same process ultimately.
I used a Zoom H3 ambisonic recorder, which was perfect because it is small and portable so I could put it in any position I wanted, rather than having to carry around a big recorder with a stand and everything. I found the process really enjoyable because for the first time I felt like I was just letting go and becoming one with the surrounding environment. Last year whenever I went out recording I would always have a lot of subconscious restrictions like a specific concept or an unspoken need to achieve a certain sound, whereas this time I felt consumed by the process and it was very liberating. I took a lot from Cedrik Fermont’s lecture where he spoke about his unwavering desire to travel and immerse himself in new ideas, cultures and environments, and whilst this environment wasn’t exactly new to me my mindset was different and that resulted in a totally unique experience.
I found so many little objects to make sound with, as the location had a lot of scrap metal, stones, plastic and washed up litter, not to mention there was a seemingly abandoned construction site that only took a little climb to get to right next to where I was recording. I will examine my recordings in more detail in my next post, where I will link the actual recordings as well.