Using an oil can to record the sea and ambient sound.

Discarded Oil Can Floating Into The Shore

Bats_20210821_205600.mp3

This sound piece is created from a collection of field recordings taken in Thanet. We have focussed on the two places which we spend the most time - in Walpole Bay, where we live, and in Minster by our studio.

Our life by the coastline has helped us to reconnect with the inhabitants of the natural world that we spend so much time thinking about. As we look out our window at the water, we are witnesses to the ebb and flow of the daily tides, the same tides which have risen and fallen over millions of years, helping to shape the geological structures and the life forms which exist in and around them. The fragility of these life forms is so apparent as they swim, fly and nest in and around our pollution. We keep coming back to this quote from Rebecca Solnit:

‘We need a new word for that feeling for nature that is love and wonder mingled with dread and sorrow, for when we see those things that are still beautiful, still powerful, but struggling under the burden of our mistakes.’ Our climate change turning point is right here, right now by Rebecca Solnit, 2021.

As we face the overwhelming and complex nature of the climate crisis, it is an important reminder to do everything that we can as individuals to improve the lives of the creatures that we share our local environment with, alongside trying to undo the damage we have collectively done to the wider ecological system.

This sound piece includes the recordings of bats, birds and shellfish.

Overland, Undersea.mp3

Water soundscape

This piece was developed for a Pale Blue Dot Collective exhibition at The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora in Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand in January 2022. Louise spent several weeks in residence on behalf of the collective in September 2020. During the residency, Louise travelled around the Ōtautahi/ Christchurch area and spent time field recording and photographing the forests and landscapes. The artists worked across oceans to develop this work whilst separated by pandemic restrictions.

Through sound, we journey back to ancient Aotearoa, to imagine the forests before they were ever seen by human eyes. As we move from the water to the forest, pushing through dense vegetation, we encounter mysterious sounds eluding to species that are no longer part of our landscape. Through a deep-time perspective, we invite you into a new way of seeing the familiar species that we share our world with and explore the cosmic importance of our habitats.

PBDC Harmonic Islands

Underneath the dark skies above, and through our human eyes, we observe the light of galaxies and stars, ancient light falling softly on our retinas. In the darkness, animals rustle through fallen leaves, waves crash around the coastlines of vast land masses, and tectonic plates grind and shift the lithosphere. Insects make their homes in narrow crevices, and great aquatic creatures meander through deep blue seas. In the darkness of the forest, one owl calls to another as star light reflects from the Moon onto the heaving trees below. In the great expansive darkness, Jupiter’s gravity catches occasional Earthly bound comets and the Moon pulls the oceans creating tides. 

To be in the presence of this life, from the depths of the oceans to the upper atmospheric winds, is the consequence of a 13.8 billion year concatenation of events.

Through the darkness we can begin to see the cosmic significance of life on Earth.

Of Immeasurable Consequence

Soundtrack for installation. The analogue sound of cycling through the medium wave band on a radio.

Rumble Radio Interferance with  Radio

Tottenham Court Road to Kentish town on the Northern line.
Sound recordings and photographs from various places. © John Hooper - All images and sound - All Rights Reserved - Moral Rights Asserted.

Northern Line Tottenham C_R to Kentish Town

Echo

Wooden Stool Metal Chair

"There is so much going on in this track, a British field recording presumably recorded recently. Something about the suggestion of that time sync makes it feel physically proximate, too, even if it’s far away from wherever the listener might be. And even if nothing in it is, technically, “alive,” in the sense that an animal might be alive, it is nonetheless very much alive. This is “Underwater Stream” by Landsounds, the name under which London-based John Hooper captures audio of the everyday and, as happens here, reveals the complexity inherent in it. In these mere two and a half minutes, there is gurgling, certainly, and droning, yes, and a hum that makes the the droning seem like its trebly by comparison, and other sounds (rope against wood?) that creak like dolphins speak. None is isolated from the others. They are in sync in their own manner. And then there’s that slow heartbeat of a pulse at the start and just before the end. It’s enough to make you think it’s been a bit of ambient techno all along." Thanks to Marc Weidenbaum from Disquiet who has said it far more eloquently than I could.

Underwater stream.

John Hooper is a photographer and artist who started his career shooting for lifestyle magazines at the start of the millennium. John has  shot many intriguing artists, musicians and actors over the last 18 years  and his experience as a photographer and director of photography have led him to collaborate on projects and numerous commissions. From 2010’s commission for Its Nice That with Art and Grafts Michael Moloney exploring 24hrs above lake Windermere in the Lake District, to the Blue Dot commission this year exploring the passage of light from the sun. The highly polished commercial work John is involved with has led him to throw off the shackles of post production and create work in camera where the limits are collaborators on the final work. In 2014 John started Landsounds as a portal for his sound experiments from there he has been using sound for collaborative work with Louise Beer. In January of 2021 John completed a short course in Field Recording : Soundscape Composition to further aid his understanding of this subject.

Landsounds

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