The recordings for Nightshift by Ward Weis were made all between 23:00 and 01:00 in the port of Antwerp.
It’s a world on its own. While the city sleeps, activity is still going on. Ships are loaded and unloaded 24/7. Petrochemical plants produce the plastics and fuels we need. We start at the river, follow a ship trough a lock into the docks, have its goods unloaded and stored in warehouses. The microphone zooms out at the end and gives us the opportunity to listen to a port, a world full of activity day and night.
Listening is an increasingly mobile activity. Headphones have become part of our everyday life, just as much as the podcasts, radio programmes and music streams we are consuming through them. Most of this content addresses us as if we were sitting in some isolated space, dedicated to listening only. However, the contrary is true: what we listen to frequently overlaps with our current acoustic surroundings. So why not use this conjunction and produce audio pieces referring to particular places? These pieces would allow us to superimpose one reality over another. This should be particularly interesting when both realities share some points in common, e.g. when they refer to similar places in different countries.
Kunstradio’s selection of six entries follows the course of a day, starting with a train ride in Helsinki and finishing with a nocturnal visit of a place that never sleeps, the port of Antwerp.
1) “Quiet Morning Train in Helsinki” by Petri Kuljuntausta
2) “Haggling over Bones” by Miyuki Jokiranta
In the North West corner of central Melbourne, lies the Queen Victoria Market - the largest open air market in the Southern hemisphere. Much of the 19th century structure remains to this day, but the market is due for a major redevelopment. Many of its 'unappealing' qualities - large cooling units, obsolete butcher's tools, seagulls scrapping over fish bones - will be wiped away. Haggling over bones is a walkthrough Queen Victoria Market with the occasional stop at the lesser visited attractions.
3) “On the shorelines of New York” by Mikko H. Haapoja
Waterfront sounds from the iconic city by the Atlantic Ocean.
For the piece, sound artist Mikko H. Haapoja has recorded Brooklyn & Queens soundscapes in 2016 and 2019. The piece forms a sonic path on the shorelines of New York City - from Rockaway Beach to the Hudson River.
4) “Moselsteig Ürzig” by Mobile Radio (Sarah Washington & Knut Aufermann)
Tuesday, 10th December 2019, 2.33pm. A bench at the Moselsteig near Ürzig, a leading quality hiking trail in Germany. Some morons have built a giant motorway bridge across the river. Here we are immersed in a symphony of noise from traffic and building sites which hits us from left and right as well as up and down. Bird song and church bells take secondary place.
5) “From all directions / In Twilight” by Merzouga (Janko Hanoushevsky & Eva Pöpplein)
Brunnsparken – a busy square in the heart of Gothenburg, Southern Sweden: people with shopping bags, people in business suits, homeless people, and teenagers hanging out near the fountain. Trams, busses, cars, bicycles, and trucks. A canal that runs straight to the harbor. Seagulls circling above, while below pigeons are snatching breadcrumbs from each others beaks. Somewhere a school-band is playing. At the construction-site nearby workers are hammering the beat into the road. Suddenly, clouds come up, it starts raining. And dark sounds rise from the canal grid like smoke and blow over the empty square.
6) “Nightshift” by Ward Weis
The recordings for this soundscape were made all between 23:00 and 01:00 in the port of Antwerp.
It’s a world on its own. While the city sleeps, activity is still going on. Ships are loaded and unloaded 24/7. Petrochemical plants produce the plastics and fuels we need. We start at the river, follow a ship trough a lock into the docks, have its goods unloaded and stored in warehouses. The microphone zooms out at the end and gives us the opportunity to listen to a port, a world full of activity day and night.
Links:
EBU Ars Acustica Gruppe
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