Soundscape Burial

Buried Cassette Tape

When we record sound and image we often speak in violent terms about capturing or shooting the footage. In this project I wanted to give the space where the sound was captured the opportunity to respond this process. A soundscape was composed from field recordings made on Pool Hey Farm, Blackpool in May 2013. The composition was transferred to cassette and buried in the ground for a year, giving the farm an opportunity to muddy and decompose the material it was stored on. The final piece is a layering of three different sound files: the original soundscape piece and a version of the soundscape as it was found on each side of the excavated tape. The three recordings start off in time, but gradually shift, thanks to the different materials they have been transferred across and the processes those materials have been subjected to. We are left with a subtly altered version of the original file made thicker and more complex over the course of a year's worth of slow sound processing underground.