Shinjuku Beacon

This piece was a soundscape made from recordings of trains and street sounds in Tokyo in 2019, whilst on field work in a Virtual Reality project with the RCA. There is a research blog about that trip here.  In addition to the street sounds, I added keyboards and guitars into the mix but tried to preserve the sounds of Tokyo as the main presence. It was made during our attempts, when we got back, to represent our experiences as a physical artefact, in the form of a zine, featuring drawn images and photographs. Richard Nash has more about the whole process on his Instagram account, Metapoiesis. I made the soundscape and then added the QR code to the zine. Later, I tried to work with video in the same way as the artists were working with drawing and laminates, and I made a video from clips I shot on my phone at the time of the visit, adding that as well. I really enjoyed the process of making something again and working in a different way on a music project, with much more environmental sound than usual. I am not sure whether it is best to listen first or watch the video… Anyway, here it is on Soundcloud…