Practice Makes Practice at The NewBridge Project: ‘the listening room’ – conversation with Jez Riley French

This event took the form of a discussion about the role of located and performance-based sound in the contemporary sonic arts.

Jez Riley French gave a presentation/talk on some of aspects of his work with extended listening along with anecdotes, and he shared some key artists working with located sound including:

Klara Lewis

Signe Liden

Sally Ann McIntyre

Dawn Scarfe

Halla Steinunn Stefansdottir

Julia Holter

Manja Ristic

and Jana Winderen.

This lead us into an open conversation where we discussed topics such as

How does fit recording sit with the idea of nature and the idyll?

The role of misogyny in the distorted histories of sound cultures

The act of listening

I really appreciate Jez' way of working and highly respect his approach to making work. He likes discovering and sharing existing sounds, as opposed to manufacturing his own. He uses a range of microphones including hydrophones, electromagnetic, ultrasonic and contact microphones to record sounds that are beyond our normal hearing capabilities. His use of photography adds another element to the audio rather than illustrating the sound.