work shop 1. loughborough junction. south london  

12 June 2024 09:33

12 June 2024 09:33

you re listening to the zalubice nowe summer house [1]

you are there

you are not out on the hills with your boots in m uch[k][d]
covering ground

nothing is covered

the loud speaker[] are to the left
you are not using headphones
the sounds do not enter your ears as if you are among them
they come out into the work shop off to one side

a blackbird is singing

a train passes on the overhead track

as your knowledge of objects falls, your situation is flatter
you are among strange things
strange attractors

sitting at the wooden table looking out
a variety of plants has come up through the hardcore
the plant[s] with small yellowish flowers – hedge bedstraw maybe – attract different kinds of bees and flies various insects come
coffee is roasting in the building
a plane passes over

the channel to the zalubize now summer house opens, the way a door opens onto an open area in sun
you think of that track into the reeds on Dorota's page
is that where you are
it could be there

every now and then you save the file

Andrea passes back and forth moving materials
all the things in that shop are free – you don t know how they pay the rent
you don t know how you pay the rent
people clean
sam does osteopathy
those jobs are useful to people – they are paid to do them

that is something – to know how to do something useful for people
you said to sam, now his osteopathy training is finished
to be useful is something, you can say, you can only imagine
you can list on your fingers the useful work you see people doing:
baker
grower

a fly passes the microphones
the sounds of the zalubice summer house are conveyed by the microphones into the work shop
you remember giving the transmitter to Dorota in Budapest while the final meal of the CENSE conference was going on
Miloš sent questions for you to answer – you must answer them
the meal was going on and you were going through the box with D – later it stopped working. then it was fixed. now it is working. sounds enter the holes on the front of each microphone capsule
they vibrate the diaphragm
those vibrations are transduced into changes in voltage

while you are looking up electret microphones, birds appear on the stream, singing vividly
you don t know what they are
you run birdnet
birdnet says the two note call is a great tit. it sounds very different from the great tits you know near the work shop. a whole book would be needed to describe the great tit's song, Koch wrote

the blackbird continues
the blackbird gave rise to Vinciane's book: Living as a a bird [2]
in Our Grateful Dead, Vinciane describes how the dead enable our actions, with the aim of completing their unfinished projects [3]
in Sound and sentiment.. Stephen Feld describes how Kaluli people in Papua hear the calls of birds as reminders of those who have died or moved away [4]
the blackbird can also be a future ancestor, you think, which you are on the way to intercept

when low or out of hope or energy, a person waits or, when they can they may listen out for cues, reminders or calls to become active, to undertake projects or do small things

it may be only small things can be done
they are the only acts or actions within reach, in the scope or your abilities
at this time

a train passes R to L
it darkens the sky like hand passed in front of your eyes
or a cloud
then it passes, opening the sky like a slider

despond weighs on you
the railway arches are heavily built of london stocks forming massive supports
pointing on the arches, and repairs with newer bricks become extensive when you look more closely
a knock on the stream, perhaps on wood
again
the summer house has perhaps a wooden deck, you think, on which something fell
or the timber of the decking and perhaps the surrounding low rail creak in the sun and the wind
or a branch blew against the timber, knocking against it
a steady high hiss of wind comes through, rising gradually in a long buildup
here a plane crosses
another knock, as if time is being marked erratically

the massive bastion of the railway arches which support the track, intensively repaired and re-pointed, indicate[s] a concentration of action over time

birdnet identifies a spotted flycatcher from a feint audio trace
then it is unable
then it finds a blackbird

the sky at the work shop has been cast over with cloud

the intensity of that work impresses on the viewer
the brixton community cinema in one of the arches has a provisional basis, with cloths roughly screening out the light
the low sun in the evenings enters the arch, casting ambient light on the screen
the loud speakers play but the image is washed out
for that reason the architects at the brixton community cinema rigged a cloth wall to exclude some light
the cloths hang limply, blue and white and black, with a red doorway of 2 x 4s slightly bowed
flowers sprout from the hardcore to the L: poppies, ragwort, plantain, grasses
clover and verbascum are lower down

there is nothing lower than the ground, as you used to say
except there is, you added
to speak of a sub ground is to open the possibility of revolt as in undercommons study, as well as the reality of being down, being below ground or surface
sam and sasha and mort and sam were at cambria rd for dinner
you were speaking about the bends
in the bends, nitrogen bubbles appear in the blood, creating intense pain especially in the joints, doubling you over
the bends is caused by breathing bottled gas at pressure and rising too quickly to the surface
before diving, the bends became known as [a] something suffered by workers in caissons, by which is understood: sealed cavities formed around eg bridge footing, where compressed air is pumped in to the space to prevent ingress of water. workers coming out of those caissons were stricken with pain, were sick and died. they died. the death of workers came to be noticed and a kind of air lock was introduced into the caisson design, where workers could de-compress. that is how you understood it, reading it last night.
similar effects can be caused by flying in uncompressed aircraft

creaking vocalisations on the stream, together with passerines
feint and unclear

Gaston Bachelard has described how different parts of domestic houses have different characters and associations [5]. the under croft is not the unconscious, you think, as Žižek described the basement [6]. the house is less resolved. nevertheless, you are all familiar with a downward drag, a kind of undertow which carries you forcefully or even subtly into its ambit, from which you struggle to rise

a raucous bird appears flying
then a dog, far off across the land or the water
its barks reverberate
one insistent descending repeating call is not identified by birdnet
it hears a chiffchaff which is feint
the prominent call it cannot identify, perhaps too locally inflected for it to parse
if it is a chaffinch
it hears a blackbird

how to give a sense of those sounds
for you
for you

bird song punctuates and articulates
without it, time is homogeneous, undifferentiated
the song consists of patterns
they repeat with variation
as performances, they are incomplete
this give them their particular quality of opening
as a gesture, they anticipate repeat. they create a period of expectation
a series of gestures set up a set of overlapping expectations which are not fully conscious, processed or integrated by the hearer the hearer is not a solitary listener: others are around: the singers. they in turn anticipate other hearers
the stream pauses
then returns
playback continues and recording perhaps continues
in vlc

opening a series of unresolved apertures, as the sketch of potential temporal patterns
temporalities
the bird singing articulates a polyphony
sparse or dense
brief or extended
overlain
leafed

in this way you can find your way through time as it acquires potentials, disequilibria, changes in density, timbre or rate

to be in polyrhythms is to be in plural situations, unfolding at different rates

space is also articulated by bird song
as by wind, tapping on a timber structure
etc

a distant siren goes off
what is it
you have no idea
high long, sustained, intense, it s still going
something like a band saw
another one starts
is it a test
you think it is a test of a warning signal
birds partially muted, you think, or masked
other sounds temporarily blotted
it started just after 11
it seems to you you heard something like that in the The Hague one time

insects
like a swarm of bees
it can be a swarm of bees, you think
indistinct, indefine, unidentified
moving away towards the centre
it could also be a dispersed collection of insect wings or wind

tiredness comes over you again
it comes like a layer
as if a hand was passed over the open eyes of a person lying dead
if you ve seen that
the way a person will close the eyes with a brush or stroke of the hand across and down

a plane on the stream:
deep, rough, corrugated
rugous
modulated as pulsed, ridged

11:08:16

just as you stop the recording, a new motif appeared
leave an opening
when stopping / leaving, leave a hook, snag, something ajar 'to be going on with' – not to be left with nothing

https://locus.creacast.com:9443/ukraine_mobile_3.mp3

you open that stream which is part of Listen Live [8]
engine
knock
swifts
a semi solid layer of traffic or other
magpie very squacky, compressed, rough
to the fore
knock, feintly
wind in a sweep of fibres
after the wind, the mid range layer is more prominent, with occasional deeper sections
somebody approaches the work shop
looking disorientated
thoaty high revs, as a burst of acceleration, maybe away from lights
you think of that place in glasgow near sasha s place, where the sound of the motorway comes constantly, later masked by houses, lie of the land, diverted by wind
you don t know how far off these engines are, idling and pulling away: digging into bass
swifts inconceivably higher: other entities in: other zones
medium long skeins or strands, or bands, between channels
like vehicles at very high speed
spaced
stretched
screeching across the speakers – decisive – not loud
clack click
haonk
rruumm
zzziiizzziiiizziiii...zzzii..ii...zzzziiii............ [rising]
pigeons or people s voices – you can t tell
voices on a radio?
radi os (        ) swifts again
time comes clamping down, you think, then pried open
opened like a can

a wren a bee
flowers continue to blurt their insides out
bees come in, descending as aircraft in increments
a train R to L on the viaduct
put a mic on the viaduct
you doubt it will move much if at all
a concretized humanised mass allows the trains to pass over
it s a form of flight

women s voices x 2 appeared undemonstratively, talking, working in the area of the transmitter
you don t know what they say
traffic is the ground: a mass
in front: they are laughing
swifts over
a micro theatre with, now and then, like a tape dispense[r] makes a high intense rip
soft voices interleaving
short laugh
riiip
rii/iip [ie in two sections, with caesura]
zzziiii.. zziiiii..zzīīīīīīīīīī....zzįįįį
voices withdrawn slightly to R
soft still
no attack
a rattle of some tool or device
the device is what
traffic recedes somewhat it seems, either with time of day or more because the voices captivate
two not[e] horn (drawn out)
two note horn (semi drawn out)
one note horn (semi)
deeper voice         swifts
everything should be at its level
but it is not
engine (4 stroke, sub bass), with voices over in the way of a refrain [7]
a line of drift
like smoke
a line of smoke
air which traverses the speakers in and out and carries strands of smoke, fumes, bass ignitions
2 note call (tit parus major. the book of tits still open, ambiguously on the table)
drift of bird species across the screen of europe
new device – hum or drone
swiswii

a wren came down in front of the window, looking for leafminers on the fig leaves - thin scarred leaves. M said water with spaghetti water. M and P picked off the miners where they were in webs on the under sides of leaves. the wren goes across the surfaces. its bill is longer than expected, fast and nimble, flesh brown, appearing in and around crates of offcuts

bouts de bois de dieu [9]

by excising god and satan from paradise lost, you read, Ronald Johnson creates a cluster of energies in tension [approximation] radi os [10]
the book of the green man [11]
erasure
the wren ran across the concrete apron before the doors
hopped off a timber wedge
towards the peppers
hanging down green
pigeon
back
oh pigeon rolling and burbling so fully
articulations of air by pigeons are conveyed by the diaphragms and reverberant clusters of rounded notes, each with nodules, lumps or grooves, in complex shapes recalling pollens
pigeon
swift
craw craw craw craw
a period of dense bird acoustics by the road
the commons – so rough and messy
M said the opportunistic meadow of flowers reminded him of fields 'where i used to sleep like a dog'
hammering timber
blunt blunt
crruucrruu, crroocrroo..

accelerate
take off
craw craw craw
the lower sounds are unrepresentable: comprising very rapid explosions of scorched air and petroleum in[s] combustion chambers, they reverberate through metal tubing producing sounds like tubas or harmonia, deep organic passages also striated, rugous (again) lumlumlum, lumlumlumlum..
knock
pigeon amped - very close, as af inverted: the inside of the sound laid open, bare
insect or bike
mid range lightly pulsing
k nuck

a big truck, articulated
with a big bee

hõõõõt,

bees bend the poppies right down
after they leav[e] the flower turns and flexes
well

there are no words for sound(s), you think
there are no words for entities
words as mute tags – pits – fissures
you discover the ° by accident with alt–)   –   [area of mutedness, feint aircraft, grey sky, withdrawal of agencies?]

how those voices withdrew and you didn t hear them go
going is not heard
withdrawal, in that way, is not heard

the rest in music
the slight catch
the miss

long nasal honk
the city if[s] full of passages
it is also the case that between spaces in remote cities, passage[s] are induced, transduced by a mixture of eventualities – lured, felt, grown,
practices of receptivity are also a feature of time between places, among..
swift calls extended – played out the way lines or ribbons
squeek   squeek   squeek
or what
new voices appear, lower, still soft, rounded, blurred, up and down, right up for a moment – then down
you are on the verge of leaving – stopping – tuning out – turning away, off, over, down, up
a curious vibration, mid
will it come again?
those voices, in which the differences are what you have most in common, continue in a life like soft patter of syllables which could be warmish rain, falling with low impact in the air around, between and around – 2 x people speaking back and forth, listening, taking turns
turn taking of listening as human performance
not cutting, clipping, over bearing, over amping
not to mute nor mask

a cat from R to L
thin tabby with thick fur tail
withdrawn L

great tit, slower, more defined
pitched down?

unable to produce sounds, a person is a receiving device without speakers
a person sits mutely
they are open to the surroundings both near and remote

long drawn sweep of wind across surface, high, alternating smooth to gritty

craw x 6
5 tone ring tone

traffic mids continue
wind sweep again (recall) briefly

occasional deeps
tyres bouncing on a distant pot hole or lump
a little prod of hoot to some car or person

no pigeon
no bird
no wren
craw – a crow (distant, edge of hearing)

hearing contracts
is coarsened
is attenuated

bee – high to mid, mobile – withdraws

where are you

pleck pleck pleck   pleck
slight nasal – brief, not staccato – what

car lock alert (single)
car lock alert (single) repeat

wind oh vivid, swooshing through in a little looping motif, with a turn in it?
again like reprise (feint)
again like re re (feinter still – the way feedback..)

do you hear a thing, you wondered on the plateau at camp fr, or do you always hear the way that thing activates the environment [of a stream in a valley]?

taking flight
you hear both: wings, air beaten, wingbeats bouncing of[f] walls, compression waves resonating in the hollows – that situation
you also hear an overlay
of topo[]logies
and an overlay of situations, which are intangible
by that you mean:
fully eluding capture and in that sense free

ah a passage of calls
coffee is the main smell in the work shop at the moment
the main color is grey
muted solitary venues tending to cleansed
on the stream, some other things are going on, you think, however opaque they may be
opacity as a right (EG)
permeable boundaries across which, EG says, it is nice to pass between flavours [12]
opaque, equally, to myself, EG says, I don't like broccoli, i don t know why

it s late
stop
12:36:53

Credits / References

1 Zalubice nowe summer house. Live stream on the Locus Sonus server by Dorota Blaszczak. https://locusonus.org/soundmap. Remote recording at work shop 1: vlc-record-2024-06-12-09h33m09s-zalubice_nowe_summer_house.mp3.
2 Vinciane Despret: Living as a bird. Translated by Helen Morrison. Polity 2021.
3 Vinciane Despret: Our Grateful Dead. Stories of Those Left Behind. Translated by Stephen Muecke. University of Minnesota 2021.
4 Feld, Stephen: Sound and Sentiment.Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression. 1982. Duke University 2012.
5 Bachelard, Gaston: The Poetics of Space. 1958. https://ia801509.us.archive.org/35/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.139369/2015.139369.The-Poetics-Of-Space.pdf.
6 Žižek, Slavoj: The pervert's guide to cinema. 2006. Discussion of Vertigo.
7 'When do I do Tralala ? When do I hum? I hum in three various occasions. I hum when I go around my territory... and that I clean up my furniture with a radiophonic background... meaning when I am at home. I also hum when I am not at home and that I am trying to reach back my home... when the night is falling, anxiety time... I look for my way and I give myself some courage by singing tralala. I go toward home. And, I hum when I say "Farewell, I am leaving and in my heart I will bring...". That's popular music "Farewell, I am leaving and in my heart I will bring...". That's when I leave my place to go somewhere else. In other words, the ritournelle (refrain), for me, is absolutely linked to the problem of territory, and of processes of entrance or exit of the territory, meaning to the problem of deterritorialization. I enter in my territory, I try, or I deterritorialize myself, meaning I leave my territory.' Gilles Deleuze. Abécédaire. Produced and directed by Pierre-André Boutang. https://thefunambulist.net/editorials/deleuze-the-ritournelle-refrain-as-a-territorial-song.
8 Live stream on the Locus Sonus server for Listen Live, a project by Natalia Revko and others. Presented at Home of Sound, Lviv. Streamer and exact location of the stream unknown. https://locusonus.org/soundmap. https://www.landtoreturn.com.ua/en/about-the-lab-land-to-return-land-to-care.html. Remote recording at work shop 1: vlc-record-2024-06-12-11h10m42s-ukraine_mobile_3.mp3.
9 Sembène, Ousmane: Les bouts de bois de Dieu. 1960. Translated into English by Francis Price as 'God's Bits of Wood'. An alternative translation of bouts de bois could be: offcuts.
10 Johnson, Ronald: Radi os. 1977. Flood editions 2005. https://www.under-erasure.com/artists-writers/ronald_johnson/.
11 Johnson, Ronald: The Book of the Green Man. 1967. Uniformbooks 2015.2022: https://www.colinsackett.co.uk/thebookofthegreenman.php.
12 Édouard Glissant in Diawara, Manthia (2010): Édouard Glissant: one world in relation. Film. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14488286/.