radio loveliness

if i can ever get this writey business behind me i'm going to settle down to some painting and do some serious listening. something i'll be definitely listening to more is sound transit

not so many years ago me and t were getting a bit tired of constant picture taking (yes, i blame digital!). there was something about being somewhere that didn't quite capture the hordes of people with cameras of all sorts in their hands - the sense that online everything can be pre-seen, seen and seen again. we started making sound recordings - street sounds, waterfalls, wind in the trees, all manner of stuff.

the file names have become something like list poetry - whereas a place might just be labelled with a name sound files become more evocative - durness, waves, tide coming in, 6am, waterfall with dragonflies, autumn, visby, botanic gardens, wind in the gorse, hill of mailer, ravens and the like.

plus you have to take time with the listening, not like flicking thru a thousand pictures.

and that's before the act of sound recording itself - picking your spot, standing with your arm outstretched, holding your breath, all the time waiting for that random element - the dog that barks, the man who wants to know what you're doing - before getting home and relistening and remembering that we were there in that moment.

which is all of what sound transit seems to be about. pick a place and listen. get immersed....