Surveilling Place - Transcription

Since I didn't press record properly on one of my visits to the piece of land I’m currently studying I decided to visually map a recording of my prior visit. This is it below. 

I spoke a lot in the recording and it was impossible to resist transcribing directly. The closest I got to my original mark-making intention appears in the bottom right hand quadrant which is from when I was sitting on the bank of the brook watching midges in an air current above the water and listening to a pair of chiffchaffs sing their repeating song to each other - 'Chiff-Chaff' - as in their onomatapoetic name. The abstract dots turned out to look a little like the midges which were using updraft from the stream to circle back into their throng. I thought it might work as a drypoint.

Here are some of the first proofs.

The paper was a bit too damp at the bottom which is why the marks are fluffly and smudged. Although I liked this reference to water, overall they lack a balance between boldness and accuracy of mark making. 

Shortly after this I started a course in intaglio printing at Leicester Print Workshop and picked up some tips; I needed to scratch the plate on top of a harder surface rather than leaning the plate on cutting mat and when I re-cut it the results were much improved.

Next steps:

I'm really taken with this idea for exploring sensorial space to produce an abstract image as it is accessable and there is no really wrong way of doing it. I like drawing without a sense of impending failure! So I'm developing an experimental workshop to share it. 

City Arcadia in Coventry is going to be redeveloped at the end of this year which is felt keenly amongst artists in the city because it currently contains precious exhibition space alongside various other small business, charities and community ventures who are going to lose their units. So, although the buildings have already been widely captured photographically, I think capturing a personal visual response to audible sensations of a space would be of value. I will publish that Eventbrite via Coventry Artspace and put the link in here when it is ready. 

Surveilling Place 2

On April 29th I decided to explore the part of Tachbrook Country Park I didn’t last time and try to find the footpath from Bishops Tachbrook shown on this OS six-inch 1888-1913 map to compare where the path starts now. 

It was sunny, warm and slightly muggy so as the air quality felt poor I walked there away from the main road through the three year old housing development at Tachbrook Mallory.  I've decided to audio record all of my visits so I started recording as soon as I hit the boundary at the alley joining Landor Road and finished it an hour later by Tach Brook.  I don't quite know what I'm going to do with all this sound - but at least I shall have it!

I did find a footpath eventually but I think the route might have altered quite a bit which explains the DC comment on Facebook over whether to make a decision to reinstate it. Later on it joined with the country park path across a dyke where there was this dilapidated single iron girder 'bridge'. I dithered a bit before crossing it because it had rusted quite badly but it was strong enough to hold my weight.

On the other side I sat by the brook for a time and watched the midges and the sunlight glinting off the water for long enough then walked around and up the meadow I missed out last time. To one side this is still occupied by development from the road right down to the dyke, separated off by a fence that splits in half a mysterious circle of blue posts, one of which had been decorated with a flowerpot.

By the fence I took a few photos of sculptural construction paraphernalia inside the development compound, including a group of digger buckets.

As soon as I left the border of the park I came across this bin overloaded with poo bags. It's obvious to me that dog owners are making an attempt to be tidy but the council has not kept up with them. It would be nicer if they could take the poo home with them!

Damage to land and habitat would be much harder to repair than prevent. Transfer of property deeds between the developers and the District Council needs to happen soon so that better waste facilities can be installed, otherwise this disgusting mess will spread, and ruin what is currently a fairly clean space.  

Radio Public - listening

Fourth week of meeting up with the Radio Public team at CoLab (2nd week in person for me) it felt like steps had been made and some ideas had hardened into intentions, although others were unsettled - only to be expected at this stage and that floaty openness that has characterised the project remains.  Bill and Helen have further exciting plans to create further opportunities for collaboration over the next couple of weeks by inviting new persons into the group and in arranging meetings at weekends.

I haven’t let ideas settle and you will have to forgive me for being slightly opaque in this post but I have several milling about that loosely revolve round the fabric of the high street and how to provoke attention to that. Some are partly formed of previous works that I think will perform well outside on Dudley High Street, while others may be compatible with other's ideas. 

I have deliberately prevented letting of these land to give them time to brew and warp, but I need to open them up so that process can happen in conjunction with others. By this I hope they will trigger a process of change that can evolve into work. 

I ended this week, or rather I begun the next, at 04:50 from the edge of a small wood nearby here, taking part in a world-wide collaborative art project, called Reveil9, created to stream a continuous dawn chorus over 24 hours from positions like mine around the world. Handily, Helen and Bill leant me a lavallier mic for Radio Public, so I was able to use that.

Setting up my ‘camp’ online initially seemed a bit tricky until I figured out that my Wi-Fi was blocking access to Soundtent. Once I figured that out the rest was very easy. Sitting in my cosy car by the wood watching my recording apparatus, while my head was in a too-early morning fuzz quite unpenetrable by hot coffee, and the occasional sparrow darted through the hedge, I listened to the rise and fall of birdsong over 40 minutes. This was a beautiful interlude to my usual bank holiday weekend which can be just a bit too indoors and screen-based - like most of life. 

There were times when all the songs of different birds repeatedly congealed into a single chord and then broke apart again, something I had never noticed before. I rarely make time to experience this liminal time, but now, having tested out how it works I am considering how to reposition and expand my contribution for Reveil10 next year.

Sketch of recording setup

Although I never did get to listen to my stream it was there in the listing right at the end of the stream. See pic for proof! However, searching for a recording led me to an enjoyable Female Pressure 97 mix on ResonanceFM by Crylighter: Link. 

If I find a link to Reveil 9 2022 I will update this post with it.