Author: Daniel Pakdel

As a first response to the ideas entertained in my previous blog post I have made a soundscape composition of my trip to Tolworth Court Farm Fields. I do intend to return, several times hopefully, to the fields, exploring more aspects of its sonic architecture using different microphones and recording techniques. For now however, with the the Portfolio 1 deadline looming, I have used the limited amount of recordings attained from my last venture. I have called the piece ‘Resonant Threads’, invoking the idea that all sounds heard within this composition are connected, whether culturally, historically or sonically. Unlike the soundscape compositions I have heard by Winderen, Lockwood or Westerkamp, I have arranged the piece in a non linear way, in order to create a new version of the fields; One that is both removed from reality, but also born from it.

Using lichen as compositional inspiration, the Ambient bed is meant to represent slow growth; an endless passage of time. In the same way that the existence of lichen entails a symbiotic partnership of two separate organisms, a fungus and an alga, I also imagine that this ambience acts as a metaphorical link between all of the sonic elements heard. I have learnt now that the dominant partner in this relationship is the fungus however, giving the lichen the majority of its characteristics. This has already put holes in my concept. Though I could also consider this fact to mirror the inherent inequality of what can be heard, with certain voices having more of a platform than others in a soundscape, i.e. anthropophonic noises. I do not want to search for excuses that make this composition work however, as that would go against all that I have discussed in my blog posts. I feel that there is more to gleaned from the discussions that this piece might hopefully encourage. I am reminded of a sentence in an earlier blog post, “what we discover is related to the question we are asking”. It is not necessarily my aim to ask a question here, but rather to stimulate our attentive and imaginal ways of knowing.

Though it feels a little hollow at the moment, I am happy to present this as my prototype portfolio project – being only the first draft of many. I will make an effort from here on out to look more closely into lichenology and Symbiotic Behaviour Analysis. I am tempted to visit and field record some temperate rainforests too, characterised by their proliferation of lichen. Regarding my methodology, I have used a combination of granulators, accordion, guitar string harmonics, sine waves, resonators and cello to create a generative ambience to mimic the multiple interdependent layers and slow evolving patterns of lichen. I have also used convolution reverb on the bus track of all the field recordings to create an otherworldly feel as they drift in and out of one another. Other than this, field recordings have not been processed any more, except for a light EQ to attenuate sounds under 100hz and above 18khz, and to slightly boost sounds between 2- 5khz range to simulate the human ear’s sensitivity. When I think back now though, am I not just perpetuating our sensory limitations by doing this?

Looking back on my earlier sonified composition Forest Area Data Sonification Sound World I am starting to realise some similarities with my prototype portolio project. Although I hit a bit of wall with sonification, losing interest in it all too quickly after scratching the itch to explore its uses, I found the resulting composition quite enchanting to listen to. At the time, I discarded the idea that it contained anything useful, other than an appeal to my aesthetics. Though when listening back I realise it is full of meaning. An imagined world in its own right, both displaced from reality and very much a part of it. All of those endangered birds against a backdrop of sonified ambience creates an impossible forest. An inconceivable sonic world that might evoke feelings of both hope and despair. This idea of world building is something I am slowly gravitating towards. I cant find the exact album right now, but I remember reading in the footnotes to one of KMRU’s albums (ambient musician) that by blending field recordings from two places, a third imagined world is created. I can’t remember for the life of me what his personal philosophy on this entailed, but I do remember it resonating with my developing ideas. As I experiment with creating sound worlds in the coming months, I am sure that a sensitive touch will be of the utmost importance. Might such worlds increase our intimacy with otherness? Could they bring us to a new moment altogether, transport us even, allowing us access to new dimensions that offer infinite ways of knowing?

All of my research up to this point has put me in a better position to conceptualise my prototype portfolio project. Vinciane Despret’s concept ‘Poetics of Attention‘, that emphasises attentiveness, receptivity, and relationality in the way we perceive our environment, is one that gives form to a lot of my recent thought processes. On the other hand, the word ‘imaginal’, coined by American ecologist and philosopher David Abram, appeared to me first during my research for my dissertation in the book Gaia, Psyche and Deep Ecology by Andrew Fellows. In the book, Fellows’ uses Hillman’s statement that “Sensing the world and imagining the world are not divided in aesthetic responses of the heart” ( ) to propose that “sensing is the direct perception of Gaia by psyche, i.e., from one epistemic domain to the other, whereas imagination is a product of psyche informed by Gaia via the ontic realm, i.e., involving the soul and the world soul. If we can view a soundscape itself as a non-static process, then could we situate any perceived interconnectivity within this idea of ‘sensing Gaia’. Still, I want to maintain that the connections I draw between these varying fields of study are only propositions, designed to spark alternative ways of thinking that I myself have arrived at.

Seeking further clarification I sought out the book In The Spell of the Sensuous by Abram to understand better the concept of the imaginal. Referring to a mode of perception and experience that bridges the sensory and the symbolic, Abram draws on phenomenology and ecological thought to explore how the imaginal realm allows humans to engage with the world in a way that is deeply participatory, connecting us to the more-than-human environment. He claims that the imaginal is not merely fantasy or daydreaming but a vivid, embodied way of interacting with the world, shaped by stories, metaphors, and sensory encounters. Abram suggests that in oral and indigenous traditions, the imaginal plays a vital role in understanding and navigating one’s place within the web of life. It’s through this imaginative and sensuous engagement that humans perceive the animate nature of the world and establish reciprocal relationships with it, challenging modern, overly rational ways of knowing, advocating instead for a return to an animistic awareness that recognises the world as alive and richly communicative.

Returning to Fellows’ book, we find a quote by the physicists David Bohm and F. David Peat: “Metaphoric perception is, indeed fundamental to all science and involves bringing together previously incompatible ideas in radically new ways” (1987/2000)

“What is essential to this form is that in equating two very different kinds of things, the mind enters a very perceptive state of great energy and passion, in which some of the excessively rigid aspects of the tacit infrastructure are bypassed or dissolved. In science, as in many other fields, such a perception of the basic similarity of two very different things must further unfold in detail and lead to a kind of analogy which becomes ever more literal.”

Bohm & Peat, 1987/2000

When on a walk to the nearby Hogsmill nature reserve I came to a fallen tree. Its a landmark that I am very familiar with as it asks to be noticed; It is upturned, uprooted, covered in lichen and of a fairly big size giving it an almost arcane aura. Even though I have paused to stare at it for a few moments on several visits, it was out of nothing more than a sense of wonder. On this last visit however, most likely due to all the research I’ve been engaged with recently, I couldn’t help but feel the tree itself was ripe with metaphor. It is not only a ‘fallen tree’, but a habitat, a bridge, even perhaps an echo of a forgotten storm. The lichen in particular however, I feel is what has always drawn me to this tree. There is something quite beautiful about the way it occupies its trunk and branches – remnants of natures paintbrush. Perhaps I’m getting a little too carried away with poetic sentiment. Nevertheless, it has largely remained to me something I know nothing about, and using the cautionary tales of misappropriation found in Despret’s writings, I must remind myself to proceed carefully. A quick google search of lichenology tells me that a lichen is a composite organism consisting of a symbiotic partnership primarily between a fungus and an alga or cyanobacterium. They are slow growing and can colonise extreme environments like bare rocks, deserts, or the Arctic tundra. Themes of resilience and symbiosis immediately come to mind. Depending on one’s frame of mind, reckless attributions of mutualism or parasitism might be made to their inherent nature. I don’t know anywhere near enough to make any sort of bold statement in regards to the metaphors that might be inferred from these hybrid colonies of algae, but I am intrigued to know whether (much like in Living as a Bird) studying them, their similarities, differences and associations might increase my intimacy with them as a life-form. A subjectivity that exists out of the realm of my own understanding. Lichen, after all, do not sense in the same way we do, responding to light, humidity and temperature in their own specific ways.

Below are some black and white photos I took of the tree almost a year ago now. Its funny how an isolated photoshoot of a dead tree so long ago has somehow made its way back into my life, and in an entirely new context.

An idea is starting to form at this point in regards to my portfolio, but before I attempt to put it into words I thought I’d make a blog post on all of the practitioners that have inspired and directed my interests over the last few weeks. Annea Lockwood and her sound maps of various rivers has been something I have continuously returned to. After having visited Tolworth Court Farm Fields, I feel as if I am beginning to hear her works in a new light. In an interview with Cathy Lane, Lockwood describes the patterns and textures of rivers as ‘phrasings’ that are “not quite repetition but feels like it.” Could this be a reason why we are so magnetised to such sounds. A synergy we could entertain here is that we start life in amniotic fluid, and life itself too began underwater – although one we should approach with caution if we have learnt anything from Despret’s book. Interestingly so, Lockwood references an old Peruvian custom of taking patients who are mentally ill to sit by rivers for days. And yet it is not only rivers that have this calming effect on our temperament. The crackling sound of fire, birdsong, rain – all of these also produce the same sensations, some studies even proposing that certain naturally occurring sounds even reduce our blood pressure. Whether we equate these effects with evolutionary associations of safety, or the “soft fascinations” of natural stimuli posited by Attention Restoration Theory, the expressive force of nature is undeniable.

Listening again to ‘A Sound Map of the Danube’, every trickle, ripple and swell of water reveals the architecture of the riverbed itself, as well as the geological features of the surrounding landscape. Lockwood highlights that the cultural differences in the environment also feed into its intrinsic characteristic sound. Recognising this reminds me of Despret’s conclusions regarding differences, as a vehicle to connect. The soundscapes Lockwood creates prompts us to, not only reconsider the source of each sound, but to continue tracing these sources back as far as our imagination might allow us. Her sustained engagement with the River Hudson also gave way to conversations with those whose lives were inextricably linked with the river. Hearing their personal stories and memories, I imagine, increased her ability to honourably embody all the facets of the river within her recordings.

When I started this course I used to struggle to understand how a collection of recordings, or abstract composition, could carry any tangible meaning. Looking back I now realise that I approached listening with quite a detached mindset that separated the art from its creator. I think I understand that now art is not meant to be experienced in isolation. At least in the context of field recording, it is the field recordist that is changed through their experiences, acknowledgement of differences, and introspection into the multiple modes of knowing and being in the world. It is the creator that brings their affections, influenced by these changes, to their art. And through direct and indirect interactions with an audience, the opportunity of an expanded sensibility is offered; If not immediate, it is most likely kickstarted by the very process of coming to terms with some perceived absurdity and, one hopes, the drive to make sense of it. Art in itself, is an invitation to engage with the myriad of experiences and interactions that brought it to life, and the visual or sonic component is perhaps only the surface of its figurative river, and not something we can experience in isolation from process.

Jana Winderen is another sound artist that has repeatedly found her way into my research. I was made aware of her work earlier this year when looking into ecological sound artists and her installation The River at the Natural History Museum, made in collaboration with sound specialist Tony Myatt, is one that I have been meaning to visit for some time now. Her use of hydrophones and the piezo technique that utilises contact microphones, is again reminiscent of the ideas explored in Living as a Bird. By this I mean that these microphones give us new ways to explore material resonances, environmental changes and bioacoustics, increasing our intimacy with the natural world in a way that pays tribute to subjectivities outside of our own. Jana Winderen states herself in her own interview with Cathy Lane: “What I decided I really wanted to do was to go out there and to find the best recordings from the very smallest creatures, like an insect eating a leaf, for example; to seek out the sounds that we do not notice or cannot perceive.” In listening to her recordings, people are made aware of these intangible sounds, and maybe stimulated to seek out the same – I feel that the growing accessibility of hydrophones and contact mics make this endeavour all the more important!

Winderen readily admits that she is very much drawn to interesting sounds, as opposed the everyday mundane, something that I have read Lockwood say too. In doing so, do we forget to recognise sounds of the everyday as important tools for reflection? I guess this is something that might require more research to unpack. Either way, we are driven by our aesthetic sensibilities, and in honouring that, I feel can lead one to their most authentic work. Her work has come a long way since she began field recording, having acquired increasingly expensive microphones that surpass the shortcomings of cheaper equipment and their noisier preamps and narrower frequency spectrums. Her work involving recordings of bats, whales and dolphins have allowed her to explore ultra-sonic animal communication, outside the human range of audibility. This reminds of the presence of bats at Tolworth Court Farm Fields, something I had overlooked up until now. During my time field recording for the Wadhurst Conservation Team, I had the pleasure of joining ecologists on a Bat Survey, familiarising myself with different kinds of bat detectors. I wonder whether I could reach out in the next few weeks to borrow one for a weekend or so.

Lastly, Winderen also mentions that her composition process is not one that begins in front of her computer, but in the choices she makes out in the field such as microphone placement, guided by her sensibilities. Thinking in terms of layers, she records multiple perspectives of the same location in order to get a fuller picture. Lane challenges her on this, asking – “But if you are choosing to pursue a criterion of sounding ‘good’ or of beauty then are you, to the extent that you do that, also leaving behind a more documentary focus, one that reflects the place where the sounds were recorded?” My response to this would be that Winderen’s compositional process is one that is guided by sensitivity and respect, and so even if she is guided aesthetically as opposed to pure realism, the very nature of her aim to create connections as opposed to divisions make her resulting work less susceptible to misinterpretation – perhaps in the same way that a naturalists affections for bird life arises from observations of their differences in behaviour, if we once again refer back to Despret’s book. Winderen states herself that the extent of her processing only happens in the field – her choice of microphone, how she uses them, where she places them, when to push record – and not manipulated in software, out of the need to respect the sonic material and the bodies they originate from. I am excited to return to Tolworth Court Farm Fields, guided by both Lockwood’s and Winderen’s techniques.

I have now booked a slot to go see Winderen’s installation at the Natural History Museum in order to directly experience her work, but also to get a better idea of how to display my own work in a gallery setting.

I’ve been reading the book Living as a Bird by Vinciane Despret, a Belgian philosopher of science, that covers various studies of avian life and unpacks and dissects a multitude of perspectives on territoriality, paying particular attention to ethological insights, ethology being the study of animal behaviour. In scientific history, territorial behavior in birds has often been linked to aggressivity and rivalry. Early theories suggested that territories served primarily to guarantee exclusive access to resources necessary for survival, including mates. This notion that females are simply resources for males is one that faced much reluctance to abandon by scientists, in part due to the introduction of darwinian theory, but most likely also because of the patriarchal zeitgeist of the 19th century. Synchronicities are rife throughout Despret’s writing, one example being the first appearance of the word ‘territory’ in ornithological literature, with its very strong connotation of ‘the taking over of an exclusive area or property’ coinciding with the redefinition of land ownership in the 17th century as a resource to be controlled, owned, and exploited for economic gain – i.e. reappropriated. Modernist ideologies, influenced by industrialisation, capitalism, and the Enlightenment gave way to a philosophical theory on the subject of land use, as one of “possessive individualism, that reconfigured political society as a mechanism for the protection of individual property” (Despret, 2021), resulting in the expulsion of peasant communities from their homes and the eradication of the ‘commons’ – i.e shared resources. Nevertheless Despret is quick to challenge her perceived connections, offering the insight that this early use of the term ‘territory’ in ornithology was in fact used only in the description of the methods used to confine birds within aviaries. She goes on to list a plethora of other connections, that weaken her initial correlation, and yet this process of considering all associations, free of a self-seeking confirmation-driven internal probe encourages her to be vigilant of the word ‘territory’ and its many manifestations that might bring on impoverished habits of thinking.

It seems that projection, or a reflection of prevailing human attitudes can all too easily show up in our understanding of other-than-human beings. By focusing on aggressiveness and territorialisation, we prevent ourselves from considering all the other dimensions of bird life. Despret outlines that many of the conclusions of aggressivity derived from competitive behaviour have arisen from fragmented observations, and in settings completely displaced from birds’ natural habitats (e.g. laboratories). Naturalists, on the other hand, such as Henry Eliot Howard, challenged theories of competition around females, pointing out that “in other species females fought with other females, couples with couples, or even sometimes a couple of birds might attack a solitary male or female” (Despret, 2021). Female ornithologists Margaret Nice and Barbara Blanchard too, noticed other attributes in female birds that negated submissive tendencies. All three of these individuals are linked in their methodology, placing more importance on sustained observation and engagement with birds, consequently obtaining deeper insights into what mattered most to them when they defined their territories. This attribution of bird biography was an alternative way of creating a certain kind of intimacy with birds, turning them from isolated test subject, to beings with subjectivities in their own right. If it can be argued that what we discover is closely related to the question we are asking however, might we say that Nice and Blanchards findings were an overcompensatory result of being women themselves within the midst of academic male chauvinism? I would disagree with this assertion, as they broke away from the prevailing fields of ornithology, to focus instead on behavioural variations, superseding the unduly simplifications of specimen classification. Perhaps the truest synergies can only be found as a result of increasing intimacy.

These ‘bird biographies’, fostering such intimacies, was initially made possible by attaching colored bands to their legs. Through this, Nice and Blanchard were able to know and understand birds individually, and through this recognise a whole host of differences between their behaviours. Certain birds tolerated others in their territory due to personal relationships, where conflict might be expected otherwise. Others changed territory without any obvious pressure to do so. Some assumed their previous territory upon returning from migration, in some cases maintaining this behaviour throughout the course of their entire lives. Others changed frequently. The examples given here hardly cover the vast amount of observations made, and to truly pay tribute I would need to write a book on the topic, something that Despret has fortunately already done so. What I have gleaned from her book is that observational practices matter, as they allow us to understand what matters to birds, with their own responses demonstrating a multiplicity of ‘modes of being’ as Despret puts it – “summer resident, winter resident, male, female, intruder, resident, resident taking on the role of intruder, intruder taking on the role of resident, male tyrant subsequently calming down, distracted female, combative female” (2021). Territory then becomes a process, rather than a static entity purely bounded by geographical lines, and the perception of resemblances become reliant on the differences that emerge from such modes of attentiveness.

In a clear failure to acknowledge this level of curiosity in ‘otherness’, The sociologist, Zygunt Bauman, in his book ‘Does Ethics Have a Chance in the World Of Consumers’ attributes newly-found habituating social habits of wasps, who were previously thought to confine their sociability to their nests, to the experiences of interlocking diasporas had by the investigating foreign scholars in their new multicultural home, the forests of Panama. In a similar method to Nice and Blanchard’s observations of birds, this discovery was only made possible by marking a certain number of wasps in order to take note of their individual behaviour. The problem here lies in Bauman’s indifference towards this change in method of observation, viewing the revelation of such fluidity of membership as the byproduct of a changed human attitude. While it is important to note that evolving circumstances can give rise to fresh questions, Despret argues that we must remind ourselves it is “the binoculars, tags, chips, statistics, sonograms, notebooks, paint markings, wired-up nests – in other words all the instruments which help make things visible, which establish connection, which bring an intimacy to our understanding and which throw light on similarities and differences, on trajectories and habits,” (2021) and not the anthropocentric ideas of the scientists themselves. To understand differently is, above all, to understand more.

Returning to bird territoriality, the Zoologist Warder Clyde Allee writes that researchers harbour a tendency to record and overemphasise dramatic incidents, whereas non-human life, under many conditions, may merely persist (1949). Such dramatic incidents may only seem so to us due to the appeal they have on our senses and as a result lead us to only comprehend otherness from the basis of our sensory limitations. “The quiet retirement of animals capable of extreme activity is often a fundamental part of living” (Allee, 1949). Tranquility then might be crucial to animal recuperation, making territory not only a place of competition, but one of refuge. To escape the trap of palpability, patience becomes a pre-requisite to observation. In Jared Verner’s sustained observations of polygamy between two groups of Long-billed Marsh Wrens in Washington State, he was able to establish multiple differences and similarities. Prolonged behaviours in both areas signaled that instead of a ‘male strategy’ it was in fact females who chose to cohabit with several others sharing the same partner, basing their decision on the quality of territory, creating unavoidable cohabitations. At one of the sites “the cycles of two females were synchronised in such a way that their nesting periods overlapped for less than two days: as the first brood began leaving the nest, the eggs of the second brood were starting to hatch. As a result, each female enjoyed almost exclusive care from the male throughout the nesting period. In contrast, at Turnbull, males only assist with feeding at the end of the season, and this synchronisation was not observed” (Despret 2021). Through these observations Verner assessed the quality of different territories and concluded that the size of a territory wasn’t as important as the quality of the resources available within it. Even so, some females still chose a male on an inferior territory, preferring exclusive help from the male, instead of an abundance of resource. This maybe alludes to the fact that birds themselves have personal personal preferences, and that not all of their choices are made out of a purely evolution-driven means. These examinations into the life of communities and relationships of interdependence bring us a little closer to how animals subjectively experience their lives. Their differences highlight their intentions and desires, or as Despret puts it, their ‘real stories and daily adventures’, bypassing the idea that humans are the only organism capable of conscious decision making.

Verner states in one of his writings that “the breeding nest was so placed precariously that I tied it firmly in place to prevent its dislodging,” breaking scientific conventions that require distance and indifference in observational matters. His supposed amateurish behaviour, stemming from an apparent need to help the bird in question brings into question whether love and appropriation amount to the same thing. In the introduction to ‘A Non-companion Species Manifesto: Humans, Wild Animals, and The Pain of Anthropomorphism’, June Dwyer states that the emotional attachments humans feel for many animals can lead to a manufacturing of reciprocity that does not exist. While a compelling read, and one that can offer another valuable mode of awareness, her solution seems a little too detached for my liking. In order to escape a harmful re-appropriation of animals she states that we must remain distant in our affections otherwise we risk the treatment of wild animals as stuffed animal companions. I do realise the inherent danger in this, but this mode of thinking attributes all modes of love to selfishness. It is true that in seeking the return of our affections love can be self serving, but the naturalist’s intervention does not necessarily ask for anything in return. In any case, if we are to completely reject our very human need for reciprocity, then we deny an emotional resonance that allows one to intervene in the first place. Such resonance is inescapable through the careful observations of another’s subjectivities. Perhaps then, it is not changing what we love, but how we love. (To avoid misrepresentation, I’d like to note that Dwyer does reach a very similar conclusion by the end of her essay). Verner’s particular mode of attentiveness is one that focuses on differences, and through this he became moved by what matters to birds.

The ecology of ideas associated with birds is a vast and intricate mapping of concepts and connections, and while models can be created, there are always exceptions to the rule, making it impossible to assign a definitive function to any given territory. What I’ve come to realize is that such exceptions are not anomalies but a vital part of life’s complexity. They challenge us to move beyond simplicity, offering a world that is harder to grasp yet infinitely richer and more captivating. This ‘poetics of attention’, as Despret dubs it, shows us how various layers of understanding can mutually enrich one another. A book I initially thought to solely represent bird subjectivity, instead offers a deeper lesson provided by an openess to all perspectives and individual life stories that might transform ‘realisation’ into a never-ending process as opposed to a cognitive space that one arrives at. Despret shows us that understanding is not an endpoint but a journey shaped by attentiveness. How might we cultivate this ‘poetics of attention’ in our own lives?

Bibliography

Despret, V. (2021) Living as a Bird. Translated by M. Buchanan. London: Polity Press.

Dwyer, J. (2007) ‘A Non-companion Species Manifesto: Humans, Wild Animals, and “The Pain of Anthropomorphism”’, South Atlantic Review, 72(3), pp. 73–89

W. C. Allee, A. E. Emerson, O. Park, T. Park and K. P. Schmidt (1949) Principles of Animal Ecology. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, p. 6.

Due to the exploratory nature of my outing to Tolworth Court Farm Fields I decided to take a pair of cardioid condensor mics, taking inspiration from Hildegard Westerkamp’s ‘Moving Microphone’ as a more active approach to field recording. On all previous visits there to record I have used a pair of EM272 Clippy omnidirectional microphones in a spaced, stationary array. While I have experimented with moving arrays using the EM272s in the past – clipping either one on opposite ends of my back pack during a hike up St Martha’s hill in Guildford, making for a discreet, easy and brilliantly portable way of field recording on the go – I have since learnt that cardioid microphones are more suited to highlighting the multidimensional nature of recording while in transit. The cardioid capsule is less sensitive to off-axis positions, with a null point in the 180 degree angle, giving it a heart shaped polar pattern. As a result the soundscape changes more dramatically as one focuses the microphone onto different surfaces, objects and in different directions, revealing a clear acoustic motion, sonic architecture and varying listening perspectives. The 360 degree patten of omnidirectional microphones render them less suited to provide the same depth of experience when sound-walking. I have found their strengths to lie in ambience recording however, offering a perspective on listening that might be likened to looking at a portrait all at once. Both have their values. In this case I used a pair of cardioid AT4021’s that I purchased over the summer due to their high sensitivity and low pre-amp noise despite being relatively on the cheap side. Still, this was at the sacrifice of the even higher sensitivity of the electret capsules found in the EM272s.

Using the AT4021s has meant that I have needed to alter the way I record when on the move. Fidelity and portability are elements that I have tried to reconcile in order to avoid hindrance or delay when encountering momentary sounds. This has proved harder than expected and my current system is one that is still in development. I am currently using my tripod as a replacement pistol grip so that I can switch from a ‘run and gun’ style of recording into a stationary setup quicker and more effectively. Below is a picture of this configuration. After today I have realised a few things. Despite its portability, it is quite a chunky and large bit of kit and this doesn’t make it so easy to navigate. The weight of the tripod also brings on carrying fatigue fairly quickly and I am regularly having to switch the burden to the other hand. I am also using a fold out stereo bar which is great for enabling me to record in both narrow and wide spaced AB, however in order to use other arrays such as XY or ORTF, I am forced to use a ruler in the field to exact the correct distances between my microphones which can be a bit laborious. I have also lost the thumbwheel that tightens the stereo bar into place. After some research I have decided to make a few changes and purchase some items that I feel will make field recording a little more seamless.

Instead of the tripod I will instead mount the stereo bar onto the more lightweight and smaller Rycote Soft Grip Extension Handle. Installing a quick release adapter onto the end of this grip will then allow me to effortlessly mount the entire handheld configuration straight onto my tripod (which I will carry in my bag’s side pocket), reducing the need to change and install adapters whenever changing from moving to stationary (this normally involves a lot of twisting of screws). Moreover, I will switch from my current fold out stereo bar to a smaller one offered by Rycote that has ruler markings along it, sacrificing the ability to record in a wide spaced AB setup, but allowing me to switch to ORTF and XY arrays more smoothly. I have also managed to find out the name of the pernickety thing – thumbwheel – that will hold the stereo bar in place and have located somewhere to purchase it from. Lastly, as I am using a Zoom F6 as my recorder/ mixer, I have purchased the BTA-1 adapter so that I can control certain elements of the Zoom F6, such as channel settings and the like, from my phone. I’m hoping that this new improved custom field recording setup will be capable of fulfilling all my portability needs with ease while providing high fidelity recordings.

I ventured out to Tolworth Court Farm Fields today and I don’t really know why I waited so long to get out and record. Its been two months since I went out armed with microphones and it felt comfortingly familiar. Ears pricked and mind open I started wandering whichever way felt right. Over the summer I developed quite a rigorous approach to field recording during my internship, taking note of wind speeds, flight paths, humidity, etc, as well as having specific locations in mind, helping me devise my now personal developing methodology. I feel now however, that this purpose driven approach to recording, while beneficial to my brief at the time, might have coloured my perception of the environment and perhaps prevented a deeper understanding of my sonic environment. On the other hand, I hadn’t really devised any sort of plan today and it felt very liberating to merely follow my ears, placing complete trust in my instincts. Over the past year I have developed a relationship to these fields due to repeated visits volunteering for the re-wilding initiative Citizen Zoo, as well as personal field recording trips. As a result my orientation of the area was already well established, and this helped to give me some sense of direction.

I haven’t actually listened back to the recordings I’ve made yet but I’ve had so many interesting thoughts during this outing that I thought best to unpack them first. I think first and foremost, what most surprised me was the unexpected encounters I had, directly and indirectly. As the fields are one of the few sites in London that are currently being re-wilded, my previous ventures here have always focused on capturing wildlife sounds such as that of birdsong and ‘singing’ insects. I realise this focus might have blinded me to all of the sounds that truly represent the fields. Within the first 5 minutes of assembling my mics, pressing record and beginning to walk, a couple of guys (who I later found out were 2nd year forensic students) sitting on a bench nestled in an alcove shaped space within a hedgerow, struck up conversation with me. Not long after, while perched in another spot listening out for some birdsong, I was taken aback by a loud mechanical growling sound accompanied by a flurry of voices. I soon realised this was the sound of a community of young men who use the fields regularly as a place to gather, smoke cannabis and ride their motorcycles, something I am sure most regular visitors have become accustomed to. Later on, while trying to find a good spot to record birdsong in the narrow wooded area along the perimeter of the fields, I stumbled upon another couple of young men inhaling nitrous oxide and laughing hysterically as a result, which made for a pretty awkward but funny encounter. I couldn’t help but feel their laughter against the backdrop of birdsong made for a fairly absurd soundscape, maybe highlighting the contradictory nature of this place. A place that urges mindfulness, yet simultaneously offers a safe space for mindlessness?

The noise of the bikers and the trash and vandalism left by youth that seek refuge here put them at odds with what these fields represent for a lot of people – a developing safe-haven for wildlife. For others perhaps, these fields represent a place to escape to and a place of community, even if these communities promote anti-social behaviour. But who is to blame for this dissonance? The individualism, inherent in capitalistic progress, that drives the heart of our cities encourages focus on personal achievement. The inequalities that arise from this, be it economic, social, cultural, and even environmental have cascading effects (like that of earth systems) on our attitudes and preconceptions. Yet empathy is required here to avoid pointing the finger of blame at the individual, taking into account every beat of life that preceded them and their decisions. If ignorance is not the fault of the individual, then perhaps it is a symptom of a wider, out of sync rhythm that we are all at the mercy of.

Thinking back to these sonic encounters earlier today I can’t help but feel that they are as much the soul of these fields as are the wildlife noises. Even so, as I listened out for birdsong, parakeet voices were the most dominant. In my 2nd year audio paper I used the settlement and spread of parakeets in the UK, as a symbol of human carelessness. The quote below commenting on their presence is taken from my audio paper.

Descendants of escaped pets that bred and multiplied, mass colonising pockets of spaces within Britain’s cities and home counties in the 19th century (Hunt, 2019). We are still largely unaware of the ecological repercussions caused by their presence, if any, but as evolution shapes birdsong to its place, could we learn something from their vocalisations?

In the same way that anthropocentric sounds impose on animal communication directly, even altering the evolution of birdsong, parakeet voices might be seen as an indirect human imposition onto native birdsong. Being the loudest biological voice in the soundscape of the fields, it made me wonder whether their mere presence encroaches on the ability of other birds to communicate and/or find mates. Birdsong, it seems, will evolve to be heard in an evermore louder world. Another quote from my audio paper stated that:

In the rainforest many aesthetics and narratives coexist, connected through bonds of evolutionary kinship. Vocal competition here however, has converged birdsong from different species into a communicative web, allowing for mediation of acoustic space (Krause, 1987). This interspecies collaboration is only possible, because all parties involved benefit, unlike the urbanised blackbird that has been pushed to the edges of its sonic environment.

One can speculate that parakeets and other native birds might find some common grounds to share their acoustic environment, nevertheless, industrial sounds do not evolve in tandem with the voices they muffle – a one sided evolution. What will then happen to organisms that are unable to evolve fast enough to be heard over the din of capitalism? In relation to Darwinian theory, playfully speaking, might we call this survival of the loudest? Listening to the parakeets triggered a thought process within me that recognised their voices as an extension of human-centric attitudes. Not to say that these critters are complicit in human dominance, but it has become undeniable to me that their chattering and squawks within the context I hear them in, carry far more information when truly listened to.

What stands out to the most is that none of these sounds are heard in a vacuum. These fields are immersed in beautiful contradictions, and yet they are all part of a connected whole, representative of endless perspectives and multiple layers of being. The lack of singing insects, highlighting the seasonal shift; The acousmatic sounds of the A3, blanketing the entire soundscape. What seemed like opposing forces at first, now feels more like an interconnected melting pot. Is there a way to represent this creatively, fostering a sense of empathy to all creatures, human and non human, intertwined with the fields’ past present and future?

I thought I would make a quick blog post reflecting on my shifting trajectory.

Up till now I’ve been juggling ideas of sonification, sonation, biocymatics and non-linear dynamics. These are all ideas I am genuinely interested in, but to my disservice, my curiosity can be as changeable as the wind. I’m certain these ideas will appear in and influence my eventual work but I can’t help but feel that my current path needs reassessing.

Portfolio work has been put on the back burner for a while now, as I’ve focused most of my efforts towards writing and submitting Element 1 of my research paper. In the last few days since my hand-in I’ve been feeling really stuck as to where to go from here. Looking back over the last couple of months, It’s becoming clear to me that I all too often fall into the trap of ambition, concentrating more on crafting brilliant, ostentatious ideas as opposed to truly appreciating what’s in front of me. In these conquests for recognition, accessing my creativity becomes an ongoing struggle, where the focus centres on realisation as opposed to process. I think there are probably some quite profound lessons to be learnt through engagement, but I haven’t yet been able to resolve my internal unwillingness to it. I’m starting to accept however, that a growing awareness of my self-inflating tendencies won’t resolve anything alone, and have decided to trace my interests back to some of my previous projects, in the hope that it might offer some insight into what it is that truly resounds with me.

Field recording and soundscape compositions have been my dominant creative endeavour over the last year. Field recording in particular, is a practice I have come to deeply appreciate, as it offers an engagement with the world around me, as opposed to the endless screen-time I have mostly been used to when creating. Field recording is synonymous with deep listening and by its very nature challenges us to question our preconceptions. And yet I feel somehow as if most of my field recording ventures have capitalised on the environment around me, as opposed to taking part in something that transcends a subject/ object dynamic – something that could be akin to developing a ‘sonic consiousness’? – In relation to my research paper.

Hildegard Westerkamp and Jez Riley French, whom I familiarised myself with during my Y2 Audio Paper research, gave me an inkling into how field recorded work can addresses social and environmental issues and it is this intersection that strikes me as most relevant to my developing practice. I have recently got my hands on the book Environmental Sound Artists – In Their Own Words, a selection of essays curated and edited by Frederick Bianchi and V.J. Manzo as well In The Field – The Art Of Field Recording, curated and edited in the same vein by Cathy Lane and Angus Carlyle, that I hope will provide some inspiration and direction. In the spirit of practice, I intend to visit a local rewilding site that I have recorded before in order to try and get things going. I suppose I’m searching for a sense of grounding, hoping being out in the field will take me out of my head.

I’ve finally managed to shift thought into action, delving into the world of sonification for the last few days or so. Sonifcation Tools, “a collection of unique creative devices designed by Ableton Certified Trainer Noah Pred to allow access to new musical ideas via real-world data sets,” has allowed me to breathe life into these thoughts. Finding, let alone understanding, applicable data sets has proved to be a lot more difficult then I first imagined. Complex language and obscure abbreviations have made it hard to extrapolate the supposed correct meaning from most I’ve come across; But after long enough I managed to find some that were comprehensible, using ‘Forest Area As Share Of Land Area’ data, taken from the online open access data platform ‘Our World In Data’, as material to sonify with. On their website, the data is represented as an animated graph, with the X-axis representing years and Y-axis representing share of land covered by forest. Downloading an excel sheet of the data embedded into this graph allowed me to copy and paste specific parts of it into Pred’s sonification device, with which I set pentatonic and dorian scales as compositional parameters. The resulting soundscape composition can be heard below. I have also left a description underneath the track to demystify my methodology.

Reflection

This was an interesting exercise that ultimately ending up being an enjoyable process once I had gathered all the material needed. On the art of sonification however, It is important to note that in a creative frenzy to sonify this data, I produced this mostly on the back of my personal aesthetic. As a result the work sounds beautiful to me, but I am aware that without the added description it is impossible (mostly) to gleam, purely from listening, what the data is telling us. In an attempt to retrace my steps, I reread the article from which I retrieved the inital data set from.

Continuing on from my previous blog post, I’m beginning to recognise a correlation within all the ideas I have been having; The relationship between audible and inaudible. Various forms of the same things, received through different senses. In the book ‘Water Sound Images: The Creative Music Of The Universe’, the universal phenomenon of resonance is demonstrated as striations in substances caused by specific frequencies of sound. The phenonemon of these ‘Chladni sound figures’, more commonly known as Cymatics, are evidence of the naturally occuring materialisations of resonance. The author Alexander Lauterwasser claims that the cosmogenetic power of sound is a “primordial phenomenon of all oscillations, rhythms and waves” (Lauterwasser, A, 2006).

In the realm of bioacoustics, identifying animal communication has traditionally been very difficult. With the advent of artificially intelligent, machine learning applications such as BirdNet and Merlin Bird ID, the speed and accuracy with which birdsong, and even ultrasonic bat calls, can be identified has increased dramatically. If we are to develop a less place-corrosive relationship with our planet, understanding the nuances of our non-human kin might catalyse a decentering process from anthropocentric perspectives. Expanding on my previous audio paper that delved into animal communication, I’ve been thinking on how to create sound figures of animal calls in order to challenge our preconceptions of the natural world. It’s an idea in its early stages, but I have been looking into similar experiments carried out by others.

The Cymascope Insitute have used Cymatic science to create a new type of scientific instrument, namely the ‘Cymascope’. “The basic principle of the CymaScope instrument is that it transcribes sonic periodicities to water wavelet periodicties, in other words, the sound sample is imprinted onto a water membrane” (Cymascope, 2020). In one incredible example, by using the echolocating sounds produced by dolphins to affect the water’s surface tensions in the Cymascope, they have made a breakthrough in regards to imaging from echolocation beams. Recreating the sound-vision sense of these cetaceans has now allowed the team at the Cymascope institute to recognise that dolphins employ a “sono-pictorial” form of language. One can only imagine the possibilities this holds for inter-species communication! Through their findings and experiments they have created a model in which dolphins can “not only send and receive pictures of objects around them but can create entirely new sono-pictures simply by imagining what they want to communicate” (Cymascope, 2020). It is evident then, that by visualising sound, there is the potential to overcome the biases that encompass our views on communication and bring us closer to understanding the world outside of our particular cognitions.

In an inverse sense, sonification translates the seen into the heard. Whilst this shift does not hold the same biological and metaphysical implications suggested by cymatic science, it remains similar in that it is a transference of one medium into another; A representation of the same element through a different sensory experience. Nevertheless, the dangers of misrepresentation here are all too easy when work is ill-defined. I have found some works that incorporate bio-sonification devices, while pleasing to listen to, falsely advertise their results, obtained within personally set musical parameters, as plant communication. I recognise the positive discourse that can be stimulated by collaboratively engaging with such biological processes, and yet I can’t help but feel that distorting a compositional tool as plant communication is a colonisation of bioelectric processes. Through this, misconceptions of flora are only maintained. On the flip side, when acknowledged as part of a wider compositional process, I do believe the art of sonification has the power to challenge our misconceptions.

In reference to my previous blog post, Helen Anahita Wilson’s appropriately describes her work ‘Linnea Naturalis’, as plant-derived music. In this work she converted bio-electricity readings into separate musical data tracks, which were then assigned to different instruments in an ensemble, depending on their own special patterns of pitch and rhythm. Using plants that cancer treatment drugs are derived from, the resulting music highlights these derivations, while allowing people to connect with nature. Helen’s ability to weave together various fields into a cohesive web is inspiring. In another example of her work, by making the inaudible sound of chemotherapy audible through carnatic Konnakol using numbers found on medical equipment, she was again able to link two completely separate elements to create a unique experience. The link between bio-cymatics, animal communication and data sonification might seem hard to make at the moment, but Helen’s work gives me renewed confidence that there might be something there yet.

Bibliography

Cymascope – Cymatics and the Cymascope Device for Sound Research. (2020). Oceanography – Cymascope. [online] Available at: https://cymascope.com/oceanography/ [Accessed 27 Oct. 2024].

NPR. (2020). The Lessons To Be Learned From Forcing Plants To Play Music. [online] Available at: https://www.npr.org/2020/02/21/807821340/the-lessons-to-be-learned-from-forcing-plants-to-play-music [Accessed 27 Oct. 2024].

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Helen’s recount of her journey to the current moment was an inspiring tale of resilience and perseverance through creative mediums in the face of serious medical calamities. By combining her research in south asian studies with experiments in corporeal acoustemology and developments in biophilic and interspecies music making she has created, what I find to be, an incredibly interesting compositional practice. In her reimagining of hospital radio through repurposed and rewired chemotherapy infusion machines, informed by her personal experience as a cancer patient, her work ‘Krankenhaus Funk And The Extrinsic Death Receptor Pathway’ fuses Indian mantras and the poetic form Ghazal with field recordings made in the hospital. These elements were treated with disintegrative sonic processes moulded after the naturally occurring process of ‘apoptosis’, whereby programmed cell death occurs in multicellular organisms and some single-celled microorganisms, further contextualising her work as a disruption of the traditional radiophonic dynamic. The end result is a listening experience that encourages emotional resonance with a patient’s experience and perspective.

What struck me as most interesting about her work was the idea of ‘sonation’, being the compositional method in which the combination of sonic elements are informed by processes and dynamics found in other fields, as I understand it. I have recently been looking into ‘sonification’ as a form of environmental sound art in order to give carbon sink data a new perceptual dimension. Sonification is the process of converting data into sound to analyze, interpret, and communicate it. I found it intriguing that sonification was only the first step in Helen’s creative endeavours, as she expressed that, as a sole tool, it was not creatively satisfying enough. As a means of perceiving and consuming data in a new way, I definitely recognise the value in sonification, and yet as a compositional process I can also see how it might feel a little shallow, leaving most of the creative task to the whims of the data at hand. Sonation, on other hand, pays tribute to context in a more conceptual way. Whether this or the other is more effective, in whichever creative purpose, I feel is ultimately down to circumstance, intention and interpretation.

As I reflect on which direction to take my upcoming portfolio work in, the interplay between these two processes have widened my creative prospects. Over the last few weeks, inspired by the laws of systems dynamics, I have thought about using non linear processes to affect audio. In this sense I have been thinking on the art of sonation, but I suppose I did not know the name for this process at the time. Perhaps I could somehow combine my ideas regarding sonification and sonation in the context of environmental sound art to increase the level of discourse formed between the listener and subject matter. I realise I am being quite vague at the moment. Solid ideas and themes are there but I am currently in the process of concentrating them and figuring out my focus, which for some reasons always happens to be quite an existential process. Aiming for process based realisations, but my brain always has other ideas. Learning to combine process with an unrelenting, and most likely ridiculous, need to understand the ‘whys’ behind my creative choices might be the way I get the better of my current creative block.

Over the first few weeks of term I’ve been overcome by a number of exciting possibilities and ideas, and in this flurry I’ve become lost to the motives that brought me here to begin with. After speaking with Milo in my last tutorial, his emphasis on using this year’s work as an opportunity to set a positive trajectory towards my long term goals have helped put my aims into perspective. Over the latter half of summer I had the privilege of working alongside a conservation team of ecologists, gardeners and rangers to create a soundscape of the ecological restoration site, Wadhurst Park. During my time here I spent an immense portion of my time going on hikes, mapping personal sound walks, listening intently, sound journalling, organising files and field recording. These habits, while gruelling, have been invaluable in honing my overall field recording practice and this is something I would like to continue to incorporate into this years endeavours. Most importantly however, this experience placed me within a team whose ecological ethos gave concrete form to my personal realisations. Being exposed to their sustainable practices, stewardship of the land and attitudes towards non-human life has been an experience I am profoundly grateful for. I think often of how to offer a similar experience to others through my creative practice.