21. Study Trip(s)

21. Study Trip(s)

I’m back from two study trips. The first was a four-day break in Amsterdam with gorgeous creative companion Mark, while the second was a magnificent sonic arts and storytelling festival – ((XMTR)) – right here in St. Leonards, and partnered with/part of the Sono Electro festival. Everything I heard and saw there was so inspiring and joyous that, quite honestly, one part of me just wanted to drop everything and just go back to my very favourite thing: SOUNDMAKING.

In Amsterdam I loved visiting a replica of The Amsterdam; a physical copy – made in 1990 – of the very boat wrecked on our local beach in a storm on 26th January 1749. The original was a cargo ship owned by the Dutch East India Company.

It was amazing to walk around this vast wooden ship, imagining that all the wood and space below decks are buried beneath the silty sands of Bulverhythe Beach.

Its display is rightly accompanied by critiques and questions regarding its links to colonialism. It bears four flags by artist collective Sites of Memory as part of their Decoding the Atlantic World installation. They convey Pan-African solidarity in their colours and use symbols to highlight the theft of land and resources that were central to colonisation.

In Amsterdam I also went to MOCO Museum which left me with one thought: The Disneyfication of Art? Discuss.

((XMTR)) festival was indescribably excellent.
I was extremely gutted not to be able to show my knitted speakers after all – I spent a week trying to repair a broken section but really it’s going to take more time to sort it out. All the knitting must be removed, the solder joins repaired, components replaced, and knitting put back on – not a quick process but one I will take on over the winter. Nevertheless, I was able to participate in the festival in a different way, and shared my music boxes playing knitting patterns in a beach hut on Friday morning, and it meant so much to be able to join in and share my practice amongst friends. Jude Montague did a lovely writeup about my work for Hastings Online Times that you can find here.

Selected festival highlights:

Journeying through field recordings from all over the world 2020 – 2024 with Field Recordings Podcast.

Discovering the multilayered, imaginative sonic worlds of Radio Limbo by Pete Hazell (hear more here).

Community listening and conversation critiquing the podcasting landscape (conservative, risk-averse, capitalist commissioning; the toxic culture of brand partnerships; the financial precarity and exploitation of audio freelancers etc.) brilliantly led by Lina Prestwood. It was joyous and affirming to sit with other audio producers and talk about zines, unions, independent funding and how to get back to courageous, imaginative sonic creativity made with humanity and heart.

Jude Montague gave a beautiful live performance paying tribute to Latvian folk music and traditions.

Fantastic exploration of the material textures of radio by DinahBird in her stunning Goldlines project, created with Jean-Philippe Renoult. For this amazing project DinahBird and Jean-Philippe Renoult located connected radio transmission paths currently used for trading on the stock exchange (hence called Gold Lines) then explored them with microphones and radios to record their resonances, textures and traces. This project makes audible the material and often overlooked layers of transmission, radio and microwaves that are moving currency all around us yet remain weirdly invisible. Read more here.

Fari Bradley performed a deeply moving and razor-sharp critique of technology and its impact on our humanity and attention span.

Isobel Anderson – founder of the podcast and online learning platform, Girls Twiddling Knobs – led an empowering and enabling field-recording editing workshop that I loved.

At Electric Picture Palace, we enjoyed a rich sonic explorations of different kinds of broadcasts exploring ideas around Terroir. This was curated thoughtfully by Lucy Dearlove.

We ended with a mesmerising sonic meditation/outro by Blanc Sceol, utilising the unique instrument – The Orbit – with its many-layered resonances and microtones. Hear it here.

My cup is full.
Hurrah for Study Trips, and the many joyous treasures we find therein.