Jen Riley French- 17th October 2016
Jen is an renowned sound artist who records raw, unprocessed sounds a variety of locations. He played us his recordings from his previous work in which he used contact microphones. He uses contact microphones to capture the frequencies across the whole of the object that he is recording. This creates interesting and obscure sounds that you would get from just listening to it with your ears.
An interesting piece he played was one he recorded in Italy. He used contact microphones to capture the sound of a stretched wire (Teleferica) being hit at various points. He has also worked with the recording of insects and the sound that they create that we wouldn’t necessarily hear.
He has recently been recording buildings and learning their acoustics by using them as a filter for other sounds. Using a vast amount of contact microphones to capture what certain sounds sound like at different points of a building.
Not only does Jez record with contact microphones, he records underwater with Hydrophones and records the earths movement with Geophones.
He outlined the importance of field recording as it’s all about capturing real and raw sounds that aren’t processed or manipulated. He stressed the importance of recording more than you think you’ll need as there is always a chance of capturing something different and unique that was there before.
Overall this session was incredibly interesting as it showed me a side of sound that I can use in this project. As Cognition will be a sound driven piece, the sound design will be complex and Jez has helped greatly in that.