Field Studies 2010 summer school
Mon 13 – Thu 16 September 2010
Field Studies 2010 is a four-day field recording workshop led by acclaimed sound artists and composers Marc Behrens, Justin Bennett and John Levack Drever. It aims to explore recording as a creative and practical tool for artists, architects and urbanists, and the possibilities of working with sound as a means to engage with places and people.
Sound is gaining renewed attention within the context of architecture, the city and the built environment. There are practical reasons, such as the importance for architects and urbanists to be able to create positive, or manage negative soundscapes and noise in the city. As a form of representation and as a means to document places and processes of place-making, sound is still entirely unexplored. Thinking about sound – how places sound – means to engage with ephemeral aspects of places, particularly the changing character of the built environment over time, which traditional visual media cannot represent. We tend to forget that photographs and drawings too require an immense leap of imagination (and visual education) if they are to represent a space. In this respect, sound recordings are more alike our actual experience of places than images will ever be.
Field Studies provides an environment to engage with all the question of sound from a much more practical point of view. How can listening to the city and working with recorded sound become part of the creative process of making architecture? How does working with sound affect the way we engage with places? Can there be such a thing as an ‘aural sketchbook’ and of what value can it be to architects and urbanists? Can sound act as a research tool and a means to represent architectural ideas? What would future urban plans and the built environment look like if they relied on sound as much as on drawings, photographs and models?
Field Studies is for everyone who is interested in learning more about the practical and technical aspects of field recording and the potential of recorded sound as part of a creative and analytical process in architecture and urbanism. The course will be run in the form of masterclasses lead by the three tutors where students will meet different approaches to working with sound, collecting material and recording techniques. Each masterclass will establish a different brief. Students will go out on field-recording trips and learn how to manipulate, edit and present recorded material. A series of talks will complement the programme and the students’ work will be published and documented online.
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The cost of Field Studies is £150.00
Field Studies takes place from Monday 13 to Thursday 16 September 2010 at the Department of Architecture and Spatial Design, London Metropolitan University. The workshop is open to everyone and all ages, and no previous experience is requried. The course will admit maximum number of 25 students.
For further information and to register, visit http://www.field-studies.org
Venue
Department of Architecture and Spatial Design
London Metropolitan University
Spring House
40–44 Holloway Road
London N7 8JL
