Call for Proposals - In the Field 2

Dates: 5 and 6 July 2024

Venue: In person at London College of Communication, Elephant and Castle, London, SE1 6SB and online

Deadline for proposals:  6 February 2024

Notification of acceptance:  15 March 2024

“a field recording is less a singular stamp of time and place, and more an index of the process of its making. It may reflect an environment or situation, but it is also a catalog of pre- and postproduction, whether audible or not. Field recordings, then, are vulnerable conduits of knowledge; their partial and perforated status leaves them open for use and abuse.” 

Mark Peter Wright, Listening After Nature (2022, Bloomsbury).

In 2013 the international symposium, In the Field was organised by CRiSAP (Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice), University of the Arts London in collaboration with the British Library to explore the art and craft of field recording. The event focused on contemporary practices and their historical precedents, how field recordings are distributed as well as how they are heard. Across a range of approaches and creative works, the symposium examined audible and inaudible soundscapes and mapped urban, rural and digital fields. The symposium also celebrated the publication of the book, In the Field: The Art of Field Recording (2013, Uniform Books), edited by Cathy Lane and Angus Carlyle, now in its 5th edition.

In 2024 we will revisit In The Field. Over a decade has passed since this significant gathering of artists and researchers. Since then the world has changed dramatically with an exponential rise in wildfires, warming seas and drought; glaciers melting at alarming rates; deforestation and ocean mining plundering natural resources, violent conflicts and an unprecedented global pandemic. We have moved into an age of culture wars where political perspectives regarding structural racism, indigenous rights, gender and decolonisation have been met with fierce resistance, dis-information and denial.

How has and how might the practice of field recording respond in these times?

In light of this new epoch and escalating geopolitical schisms, it is time to re-visit the field and ask:

• What is the field and can all fields be considered equal?
• Whose field is whose – can any field be our field and who, and what, might belong in the field?
• How are field recordings being used within and beyond sound art?
• How might field recording develop in the future?
• How do the historical roots of field recording continue to influence contemporary practices. Can we identify specific taxonomies and tropes?
• What ethical entanglements are embroiled in listening to, recording and representing human and more-than-human actors?
• How are depictions of ‘pristine Nature’ and the ‘alien other’ being challenged, documented and shared?
• How does the identity of the recordist reveal itself through listening back?
• What new creative and critical approaches are being deployed, in the field or the studio, that engage or reflect contemporary crises?
• What documentary and compositional practices are employed in artworks utilising field recordings and how does this affect notions of truth or verité?
• How can we reassess the practice of field recording and the global economics of recording technologies?
• How does field recording engage pedagogy and learning?
• How and why do we continue to press record?

We invite proposals for papers, workshops, performances and fixed media works that engage with these questions and other related themes. Presentations (excluding workshops and performances) can be either 10 or 20 mins and should spark debate and conversation and focus on the hows, whys and consequences of practice and research. We urge selected presenters to play stereo sound excerpts as part of their presentations where possible.

To assist the review committee process, please choose the primary theme your presentation hopes to engage with from the following suggestions:

• Site, place, culture (rural, urban etc.)
• Creative and critical approaches/methods
• Technologies
• Human/Nonhuman
• Ethics
• Pedagogy