In the past, I have been working with images of absence through the medium of toned cyanotype, utilizing its capacity to highlight the traces and outlines of objects or images. In this series, I endeavoured to capture the shape of the lost sound. The making stages include digital editing of the photos circulated by members of the Sound Loss! Collective; printing the images onto tracing paper; coating the paper with photosensitive emulsion cured in the dark, exposing it in the sun, then washing, and drying.
On May 12, 2023, I revisited the Hamarikyū Gardens in Tokyo, where I recorded the second track of “Cidade Arquipélago” (Seminal Records, 2015). The 2014 recording seemed almost scripted: crow sounds, surprising binaural results, and other “sonic novelties” made the comparison with the 2023 session disappointing. This highlights the confusing status of a memory transferred to an external object, a memento of the recordist. A sense of loss (of an idealized image, of a memory), triggered by this disappointing recording session, led me to focus less on memories and the impossible task of reenacting affects, and more on repetition, routines, and everyday situations.
In 2014, while conducting fieldwork across Chinese cities, I recorded incidental sounds: sirens, public service announcements, park singing troupes, advertising loops, mall muzak, portable speaker noise, and megaphone crackle. While most of the context got lost to memory, these files have preserved a rich paratext, including clicks and thuds from handling the recorder, cable rustling, and accidental audio events. For this collective work, I have silenced most of these recordings, leaving only sounds that would have been cut and erased as noises, interferences, and distortions.
In the past, I have been working with images of absence through the medium of toned cyanotype, utilizing its capacity to highlight the traces and outlines of objects or images. In this series, I endeavoured to capture the shape of the lost sound. The making stages include digital editing of the photos circulated by members of the Sound Loss! Collective; printing the images onto tracing paper; coating the paper with photosensitive emulsion cured in the dark, exposing it in the sun, then washing, and drying.
On May 12, 2023, I revisited the Hamarikyū Gardens in Tokyo, where I recorded the second track of “Cidade Arquipélago” (Seminal Records, 2015). The 2014 recording seemed almost scripted: crow sounds, surprising binaural results, and other “sonic novelties” made the comparison with the 2023 session disappointing. This highlights the confusing status of a memory transferred to an external object, a memento of the recordist. A sense of loss (of an idealized image, of a memory), triggered by this disappointing recording session, led me to focus less on memories and the impossible task of reenacting affects, and more on repetition, routines, and everyday situations.
Robert Simpkins
Koko no hankyō (the echo here)
"Koko no hankyō (the echo here)" is a speculative sonic engagement with rumor, construction, and loss along Tokyo's Chuo train line, presented as a train journey to Koenji station. Punctuated by audio of fieldwork from 2014 to 2023, it echoes the concerns of Koenji musicians about the future of their music spaces amidst redevelopment and urban change. It reflects the rhythms, intervals and possible future silences of a shifting urban soundscape.
Jessica A. Schwartz
(Sounds Lost) in translation + dog barking REMIX
I edited two field recordings from Majuro Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands (2008-2010). I mostly removed my interlocutors’ voices, leaving sounds in a “lost” state, but kept moments showcasing our attempts to communicate. One recording features a dog barking, a reminder of a tsunami warning following a Chilean earthquake, highlighting expats' fear versus local knowledge about tsunamis. The other captures my struggle to learn the Marshallese language, reflecting the political and personal challenges of translation. These silences emphasize the complexities of understanding different perspectives and the impact of climate change on Pacific atolls.
Andrea Giolai
Udono
Since 2013, I have been visiting Udono, a reed bed along Japan's Yodo River, where Gagaku musicians source reeds for the hichiriki, a small wind instrument. The construction of a nearby highway bridge threatens the quality of these reeds, and many interlocutors believe that when the highway is completed, the "authentic" sound of Gagaku will be lost forever. I edited my field recordings from Udono, featuring bird calls and jackhammer noises; in parallel, hichiriki player Nakamura Hitomi and I sing the melody of a characteristic modal piece (chōshi), but our voices float in and out of audibility, evoking the imminent disruption of a localized history of listening.
Kaneko Tomotarō
Title: About In Vacuity [Shinkū no]
Two artists read a book aloud simultaneously, barely understanding each other's words but occasionally syncing their voices. This sound is part of Ueda Kayoko and Watanabe Erize's 1973 installation "In Vacuity [Shinkū no]," which includes a chair, several books, and loudspeakers. Inspired by unintelligible conversations from another room, the work explores the potential of sound loss. Japanese art history often overlooks sound, leaving it fragmentary. "In Vacuity" was re-enacted in 2022 by Hori (Watanabe) Erize and Hori Ayano for my project “Japanese Art Sound Archives,” which aims to preserve and make accessible historical sound activities. A fragment from this piece joins other conversations in the collective composition.