In 2013 I took two silent records to the coast of the North Sea. I placed each record at the shoreline of the sea: one at Holme-next-the-Sea, as the tide was coming in and one at Cley, where the tide was going out. After seven minutes I retrieved each record from the waves and returned it to its sleeve.
The records have been played, or rather, performed three times. With each performance, the record of the tide changes, the coast of silica clinging to the surface shifts and silence is dislodged by the wave of the stylus. Occasionally the needle gets stuck, and the original 7 minutes of unrecorded silence locks, resumes and endures. The silence inscribed on the surface of the record is rewritten with every utterance and audition: this is not a memory of the tides, but a remembering of them.
In the summer of 2016 I performed a third variation of the tides, using the revolve of two turntables to mingle the silence of the tide coming in with the silence of the tide going out. I am delighted that this variation has been included in the latest edition of the Canadian audio online publication, textsound. Curated by Michael Nardone, “Sonic Materialities”, ‘assembles works that blur the distinction between performance, poetry, and the sonic arts. Dialogues, field recordings, talks, electromagnetic arrangements, installations, lyric works, remixes. Nardone writes: “Sonic Materialities” explores the fugitive modes of embodiment, inscription, and exchange in phono poetic practice.’
textsound Issue 21: sonic materialities, listen here.
sebastiane hegarty 