The Domestic Soundscape making, listening, thinkingfelicityford@outlook.com
Essays
Personal Treasures
Object play – for adults as well as children – engages the heart as well as the mind; it is a source of inner vitality…during all stages of life we continue to search for objects that we can experience as both within and outside of the self. – Sherry Turkle, What makes an object evocative? […]
Walking and Listening.
Thanks so much everyone for your help in identifying the mystery bird from my last post! I think you are all right and the sound I heard was a Great Tit singing. The first few files that I found through google relating to the birdsong of Great Tits didn’t sound at all like what I […]
Composed.
I am having some big problems with my ISP and cannot upload the composition I have finished today and wanted to share here. But I do have this exciting glitterphones photo which is one of the images created in the process of designing the web-stuff for the Sonic Advent Calendar, and I can tell you […]
Much loved.
The other day I got a beautiful, hand-crafted package from one of my really great friends. It was so cheering and lovely that I felt it necessary to share the package and its lovely contents here and to make a public declaration of thanks for all the love. It has certainly filled me with joy. […]
‘One Morning in May…’
I have been investigating English Folk Music recently. This spate of interest is mainly inspired by seeing the awesome Rachel Unthank and the Winterset playing recently in Oxford, and becoming somewhat obsessed with their CD. As well as reconnecting with my latent Geordie tendencies* and singing along to the CD on all my car trips, […]
Feedback…
Last week saw the Feedback Shed books going into the post for all the artists involved with Magic Hour. Additionally, a small group of us came together to discuss The Fantastical Reality Radio Show, making the whole week feedbacktastic. Feedback Shed book. Working on the book has been a real process of valuing commentary and […]
Reading: An Open Gallery, some sonic experiences
It is also possible to experience many sounds in Reading: An Open Gallery. At the bottom of this page, you will find a sound curated and experienced during Reading: An Open Gallery. The noise machine, permanent sonic installation, under railway bridge, A329 Road, artist unknown. A testimony to industry and modernism, this immense work acts […]
Nature Art in Reading
Continuing with our Reading: An Open Gallery blog post series, today I want to talk about art experiences that can be had relating to the concept of ‘nature.’ In Reading Museum, there is an incredible room called The Box Room. With an emphasis on touching and handling objects from the past, this installation causes viewers […]
Reading: Different Scales
One of the other things we noticed whilst travelling around Reading: An Open Gallery, was that many works we encountered caused us to investigate the scale of either ourselves or the exhibit we were experiencing. Take, for instance, the chairs positioned on the pavement outside the Autistic Shop. In this shot they are obscured behind […]
Animal Art in Reading part 2:
Cat and Mouse, performance piece, My House, Reading. In this terrifying performance, the vulnerability of life and the brutality of nature were stunningly evoked. Appearing as if from nowhere the tableau of The Cat playing with a plainly terrified Mouse materialised in my garden like a vision from hell. The place of man in the […]
Animal Art in Reading
Continuing with the theme of Reading: An Open Gallery, I wanted today to look at representations of animals in Reading. Most intriguing was this sign, hanging beside the Rising Sun Arts Centre on Silverstreet, Reading. Beware of the dog, paint, wood, site-specific installation, Silverstreet, Reading, Artist Unknown. The handmade qualities of the sign coupled with […]
Reading: An Open Gallery
I am fascinated by the idea that the context in which we view things changes our relationship to them. Take, for instance, Duchamp’s Fountain or any of the exercises in Roger Pol Droit’s 101 experiments in the philosophy of everyday life. Whether recontextualising a urinal as Art or Becoming Music as a philosophical exercise, a […]
NaBloPoMo and Not Liking…
I was just reading over on Ysolda’s blog about NaBloPoMo. The idea is to post every day of this month. Obviously I missed posting yesterday, but I remember doing the advent calendar last year during December, and how much fun it was to post stuff everyday, so I will try and stick to that this […]
Last minute preparations
I have but one and a half of our delicious squashkins left, for I just grated the other half into a squash/ginger cake for tonight’s workshop attendees. I have also loaded all the wool assembled so far into a very large suitcase. Nobody is going to be short of any desired colour, that’s for sure… […]
Words and Pictures
When I was an undergraduate I did my first printing project using any real consideration of type. The printing involved making tickets for a performance I created called ‘Concert for a closed cinema.’ The concert comprised flute, accordion and voice lamenting the closure of an independant cinema in Dublin, in 3 movements. I based the […]
Mending
I appear to be having some kind of small arthritis flare up. The joints I know for sure have been actively flaring up in the past are very slightly aching but more than that, I’m absolutely shattered. One of the side effects of long-term illness and conditions is that they place an ongoing and difficult […]
Letterpress Time…
At 3pm today, GMT, I will be on Radio 4’s Questions, Questions, talking about my washing up recordings. That is the BBC Reading flag, photographed at the studios on Tuesday, when I went over there to link up to Radio 4. At the end of this post I have put links to some of the […]
Domestic unbliss / washing up…
You may remember the code I devised for ‘washing up types’ many months ago whilst working on the Fantastical Reality Radio Show with Mundane Appreciation?According to that scale I position myself resolutely as a type C washer-upper; i.e. I dislike doing it, I leave it until it absolutely must be done (i.e. there is nothing […]
The textures of Napoli…
A different language is a different reality; what is the language, the world, of stones? What is the language, the world, of birds? Of atoms? Of microbes? Of air? – Jeanette Winterson, Art Objects The images, interviews and sound clips that I collect will sound foreign; it’s noisy here, it’s big, and I think truly […]
Messy Tuesdays, and Thrifting a Holiday Wardrobe
*WARNING: contains Some Ranting* Mark actually pointed out that this ought to be my Messy Tuesdays post image for today. My wardrobe often gets into this kind of state. I find this reflective of my sense of overwhelm and distress surrounding clothes. Questions concerning how I should dress myself in relation to the larger issues […]
Creative Challenges: Bowerbird C.O.N.T.E.S.T.
After reading Oxford Kitchen Yarn’s moving and well-written post on her creative aspirations for the next year, and following the links to Bowerbird’s C.O.N.T.E.S.T., I decided to put togther something here, detailing the creative challenges I want to set myself for between now and this point next year. I decided that, in the spirit of […]
FO: MA, Missability Writeup
I have hopefully freed up some headspace by finally posting about the now infamous Yarnstorm media fest. In other news, I am addicted to knitting Tatami and I’m planning a London trip on Saturday to see The Mundane Appreciation Society at the affordable Art Fair, then taking a trip to Prick Your Finger to suss […]
My recipe for happiness.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this article by Liz Hunt in the Telegraph this week, citing women like Jane Brocket and their lifestyles as the root of modern woman’s unhappiness. According to the article, books like The Gentle Art of Domesticity set an impossibly high standard for women and contribute to our general sense […]
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