The Domestic Soundscape making, listening, thinkingfelicityford@outlook.com
Listening
Sound Diaries conference
Come! 4th June 2009, 1000-1700 Oxford Brookes University The Sonic Art Research Unit at Oxford Brookes is hosting a conference focusing on the collection, organisation and presentation of documentary sound building on the activities of the Sound Diaries website. The emphasis is on unprocessed everyday sounds alongside projects or practices that explore their use. The […]
Mending the pipes
You may remember the dripping faucet in my bedsit that inspired this artwork? Record the sound that keeps you awake at night, Felicity Ford, 2009, pillow, permanent ink, faucet stamp, pillow-speakers, CD player, audio recording of permanently looped dripping tap sound, title and basic concept taken from Learning to love you more by Miranda July […]
Karen and the schedule of the week
A few weeks ago I interviewed Karen of Karen magazine. It was a real privilege to be able to visit Karen at her home, to meet her partner, her cat and her friends, and to experience the locale in which Karen magazine is so deeply rooted. And it was marvellous to meet Karen herself and […]
Sonic Wallpaper
Quietly in the background, a revolution is taking place in the British wallpaper Industry. Contemporary patterns are no longer the preserve of an elite… – From Sanderson’s Three Arts Exhibition of wallpaper and fabrics, 1954 – 55, quoted in The Musem of Domestic Design and Architecture’s current exhibition, Designer Style: Home Decorating in the 1950s […]
Reading, the Tour
View Reading Tour in a larger map Inspired by Kate’s York Craft Tour, I have put together my own little tour of Reading. I have made notes for all my destinations on the map and many of the places have already been written about in this blog, but I thought it would be good to […]
The best mixtape anyone ever made me!
The extremely long drive from Cumbria to London and back to Reading on Wednesday was smoothed out massively by a really excellent mixtape that Phillipa sent to me. Rachael and I had our ears filled with rich audio goodness from the lake district to home because of the smart, exuberant selection she included. Listening several […]
Mark Vernon & Pause Buttons
As I mentioned before, I visited with Mark Vernon the weekend before last and we talked at length about his amazing collection of amateur tape recordings, approaches to composing and the whole relationship to sound that develops when you get seriously interested in recording it. I really value the opportunity to talk to other artists […]
The Rubberloaf Bake
One of the hazards of breadmaking is that sometimes you make a really crap loaf of bread. Experimentation inevitably results in a certain level of failure, and I recently made an impressive bread blooper. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the Dwarven Loaf of Mordor. It may look innoccent enough in the photo above, […]
Mixtapes #2
At the weekend I was lucky enough to visit with Mark Vernon who is an artist living in Glasgow and producing a lot of interesting work. Mark Vernon’s tapes. Some of the main influences on Mark Vernon’s practise are old, found cassette tapes. For some time now Vernon has made a point of seeking out […]
Of mixtapes and men…
Genius to fall asleep to your tape last night So warm Sounds go through the muscles These abstract wordless movements They start off cells that haven’t been touched before These cells are virgins Waking up slowly My headphones They saved my life Your tape It lulled me to sleep Nothing will be the same I’m […]
S H E E P
On Sunday, my S H E E P focussed field-recording show played on London’s Resonance FM as part of the Framework afield programme series. You can stream the podcast for yourself here on the Framework website, for one week only. Here are the notes. /*framework*/ – phonography / field recording; contextual and decontextualized sound activity […]
Bath…
I was in Bath for the past two days visiting with my lovely friend Isolde, who you may remember from the Pimp My Guide feature in The Missability Radio Show, and who is currently in Hospital. Naturally I felt that cakes were an essential enhancement to our time together, so I made these using the […]
The Sonic Breakfast Plate, SOUNDBANK and graphic scores
I was intrigued recently to note that at the same time that Love is Awesome was taking place, Grupat – a show featuring many installations and works relating to sound and objects – was running in Ireland. It is just my luck that an incredible, not-to-be-missed show was on at the same time as my […]
Productive day
The mics-on light in the BBC Oxford Studio Today has been a productive day. It began with editing my feature and packing up my Art Object for an hour of recording at the BBC Oxford studios. On Sunday at 9 – 10pm, on 95.2fm in Oxford or anywhere online live, you will be able to […]
WIP – Transistor Radio
One of the assignments I set myself to undertake during Love is Awesome, was the recreation of the transistor radio detailed in the 1972 Ladybird book, ‘Making a Transistor Radio.’ I am not the first person to have thought of this and I am poorly versed in the complexities of circuitry. But the clear diagrams […]
Messy Tuesdays in 2009
Who remembers Messy Tuesdays? This morning I have briefly enjoyed re-reading about the various messes that people have honoured and mentioned in the past, and posts about messy knitting needle-jars, bags of selvedge, unwashed dishes etc. have given me hope and made me feel that I am not alone in my struggle with STUFF. It […]
Recording Sounds
Focussing on The Domestic Soundscape means that I am faced with an endless, ongoing, repetitive, banal, ordinarily ignored and totally undervalued raw material with which to work. We awaken to the domestic soundscape, we fall asleep to the domestic soundscape, we are surrounded at each moment of domestic activity by a set of sounds that […]
Love is Awesome is Open!
Thaddaeus is my brother and there is no way in the world that the show would have opened yesterday without him. Not only did he lug my maple-top table from a car-park into the gallery and up the stairs, not only did he drill into the impossible walls of Gallery 10 for me to be […]
Love Assignment #5: Build Memoryphones
On my radiator at the moment, 2 knitted headphone pouches are blocking in preparation for their assemblage as memoryphones. I would like to invite some opinion on the nature of the memoryphones. Knitted from the yarn that Rachael spun out of a much beloved cassette last year at Analogue Amnesty, the memoryphones were initially intended […]
Love Assignment #4: Find beauty in the city
This assignment comes from Anna Francis, who runs and manages there is beauty in the city on the project blog. You too can take part in ‘there is beauty in the city’ by visiting the blog and writing to Anna. Alternatively, you can pick up a magnet pack from the Love Is Awesome exhibition, as […]
Love assignment #3: create a site-specific work for the knitted speakers
While I was doing my MA I knitted a soundsystem with 32 working, miniature speakers. This piece was the start of my obsession with The Domestic Soundscape, and I played many domestic recordings through the soundsystem once I had spent an entire night installing it. Here are the knitted speakers 1. being made 2. laid […]
Colonisation
The illicit broadband theft continues, so I am going to show you around while the door is open. I am amazed at the swift way that knitted cakes, dotty things, woollen joy and handmade wonderment have begun to consume my new environment. I wonder if my stuff breeds in the night to make more stuff, […]
Amazing sounds of yesterday
I recorded these on my camera, as videos. One is Rachael’s new spinning wheel, which sounds different from her old one, and the other is the very touching little radio loop that plays in the TATE modern installation by Dominique Gonzales Foester.
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