Birling Gap Audio Project

an unedited extract of a durational recording of vibrations within soil horizons - east yorkshire 


ink botanic is an on-going series of installations and multi-channel sound works...research into transpiration, root systems, cavitation, vibrations in soil horizons and situated connections between species

recorded with JrF c-series contact microphones, d-series hydrophones and adapted geophones


https://jezrileyfrench.co.uk/ink-botanic.php

ink botanic - soil horizons (unedited extract)

Fire is an element that has shaped the Australian landscape for thousands of years – a tool of management used by nature and humans. Phragmites reedbeds of the Macquarie Marshes become tinder during dry periods, susceptible to dry summer storms. It only takes one strike for fire to take hold, smouldering quietly until the flames gain energy. On a Saturday afternoon in late October 2019, a fire raged across the Northern Nature Reserve of the Marshes, burning 3,000 hectares before being brought under control the following morning. If there’s follow-up rain or sub-surface moisture, the reeds will come back. Some of the old river red gums flanking the reedbeds weren’t so lucky – it’d been one drought too many for them.

Fire in the Marshes

A Sound Walking podcast conversation between artist Volkhardt Müller and Emma Welton, in three movements. Many of Emma's Exeter Sound Walks have brought her to the city’s limits which for various reasons we can’t or don’t transgress. Volkhardt is an Exeter based multidisciplinary artist with a professional interest in landscape, how people shape it and how it shapes people. They walked the City Edge, one evening in May. Commissioned by Art Work Exeter for Art Week Exeter 2022.

from Emma:
Do you tune into the sounds of your environment when you’re out and about? I think of them as neverending music composed, both deliberately and accidentally, by humans and more than humans together.

I am Emma Welton, a violinist, composer and sound artist living in Exeter, a small city in South West England. I have mapped Sound Walks in my neighbourhood over the course of a year, mostly alone, but sometimes with other listeners. Many of these walks have brought me to the city’s limits which for various reasons we can’t or don’t transgress. I invited artist Volkhardt Müller to walk the City Edge with me, one evening in May. 

Volkhardt is an Exeter based multidisciplinary artist with a professional interest in landscape, how people shape it and how it shapes people. He grew up in Swabian Jura in Southern Germany, and has lived in Exeter with his family for twenty years.

He is a member of artist collective Bind Ditch, and an experienced socially engaged practitioner. Volkhardt has produced a rich and multi-award-winning body of work in response to the city of Exeter. He is also a craftsman and a translator of popular science books.

Over these three podcasts we’ll walk from the bottom of the Exe valley to the top of a hill, listening all the while. You can think of the podcasts as three movements of a symphony taking place at the end of a day, whose music moves not only through time, but also space.

The first part of our walk went north along the Exe Flood Relief Channel to the river Exe. We met just after a rainstorm outside Exwick Parish Hall, on a small road that crosses the valley.

We recorded our conversation and the sounds around us with binaural microphones so if you listen through headphones you hear the sounds surround you as they did us.

An Evening Symphony, With Barbed Wire, 1st Movement: Swifts, motorbikes, barbed wire

How can we use sound as a storytelling tool in regional areas?

We're talking with Kim Goldsmith, environmental sounds audio producer. Kim’s began storytelling at an early age, going on to work as a print and radio journalist for several years before establishing a creative communications agency in Central West NSW in 1996. For 27 years, Kim has offered a range of communications options with the sole objective of meaningfully engaging with audiences. Kim has worked with clients across a range of regional sectors including agriculture, natural resource management, regional development, tourism, education and the arts.

For more information see: https://kvgoldsmith.com/

Pirate Radio: Kim Goldsmith on working with sound

A walkshop invitation for those attending the Australian Walking Artists gathering in the Otways, or for any walking artists around the world. 
Listen to this audio at the start of your walk. 
Record a 1-2 minute voice message about what you notice on your walk and send to Amy at a.tsilemanis@gmail.com
She will create a piece that weaves together all the voices and experiences anonymously.
Love to hear from you!

 

Audio Transcript:

Hello, welcome, Amy T here and a little adventure prompt for you.
Start inside a house
Before you leave the house, select any book from around you and turn to page 9, 53, or 202
Note an intriguing word, phrase, or sentence and write it down or remember it. This will be your walking companion.

Walk outside the house. If you’re not at Johanna find any tree that you’re drawn to and stand by it.  At Johanna, you’ll head towards the peace tree. It’s a birch tree, between the house and the driveway, with a wonky brick path that leads to it, and a mushroom solar light at its base. It is also known as the fairy tree. 

As you stand here with the tree, feel your feet on the ground and reach your eyes to the sky, and think about which traditional country you are on, sending respect to traditional owners, and to all the living inhabitants of this place.
The peace tree is a place to bring our offerings- shells and feathers, or our hopes and wishes.
We’ll return to this tree, or any you’ve chosen, at the end of the walk and I invite you to bring it something, physical or a thought or song, and leave your offering in any way you wish. 
On your travels, record me a voice message, a dispatch from your wander, with the things you noticed and any questions or answers that may have arisen. I will weave our wanders and voices together. 

A poem for your travels:

There is room for everyone

Waking with these words on my tongue,
The question mark in my gut,
Longing for it to become-
Truth
Turf toiled with love

The garden party, the cities ruined by bombs,
The bears-who know no borders-
Poisoned and re pieced
By a team of those who don’t believe in extinction
but that co-existence might still be done

Un-kin, in foreign skins, but blood within
Let there be room for everyone
All creatures under the sun,
Hold space not ground
Flowers to the butts of guns
In prayers of peace, to all not some-

Let there be room for everyone

Music beneath the poem is 'Speak Forever' by Gelareh Pour's Garden Quartet https://gelareh.bandcamp.com/album/garden-quartet

An Easter Walking prompt

Give me a minute to take you into my garden. It's an early morning in summer in Dubbo NSW, where the temperature is expected to peak at 40 degrees Celcius - casting a heavy blanket of heat over every living thing. Using water from our dam, the early hours are spent topping up bird baths and watering plants in the hope they survive the heat. The dogs get a bit excited by the sprinklers too.

Sounds of Summer: Dubbo Garden

ecoPULSE.art is a platform for projects exploring the future of regional territories through enquiry, connections and creativity. Kim V. Goldsmith is a storyteller with a background in radio and print journalism, communications and content production spanning 30 years. She lives and works in the heart of regional NSW Australia, where she explores the issues that come with humans in the environment, and through her sound work, aims to give a voice to the more-than-human world around us.

Fire in the Marshes

ecoPULSE / Kim V. Goldsmith

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