Hearing the sounds around you amplified 'equalizes' them, every sound takes on the same value, whether it is children running around or the sound of your own footsteps. All hierarchy is gone and at first this can be quite confusing. I was never aware how much hearing influences your spatial awareness.
Listening to your surroundings this way removes you from the sound-sources and submerges you in them at the same time.
The sound in the shopping centre contrasted with the sound in and around the estate. Walking up a stairwell the sound of the road next to it came in and out of focus. There were a lot fewer sounds directly generated by people, the only two I came across were a man working on his car and two boys playing football in a garden. Although most of the sounds I recorded were either manmade or industrial there was also birdsong, wind and rustling leaves.
After walking around the almost deserted estate we met up again and a man who noticed us started talking to us about the area. It was interesting to hear his perspective on developments in the neighbourhood.
Walking on past South American cafes and establishments there was music and the sound of people interacting in different languages and of children playing.
Most of the people on the walk seemed to be interested in politics at different levels. For me this emphasized that the sounds themselves were a-political. It was my way of listening to them that added any political colour.
Going on the walk changed the way I listen and the way I thought about the recordings I had heard at the opening of the related exhibition at Raven's Row Gallery. It made me more aware of the sounds a community generates and how these sounds are part of everything that disappears when a community disappears. And all of us are part of the soundscapes that surround us.
Maartje
I thought it was a very unique experience, and couldn' expect that sound would allow such a deeper vision of a space. That way, I found also interesting to hear about Elephant & Castle's history. It is rare to take time to discover the different "layers" of places in a city like London.
Roxane
Thanks for this fantastic experience.
Gautier
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