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I cycle home along the canal, but at one point I usually turn off from it and head into this neighbourhood around St Kevin’s before looping back to the canal in order to steer clear of a footpath that doesn’t leave enough room for cyclists.
This is a tiny street with a pub at one end, lots of residences, and, for as long as I’ve been cycling this route, a great deal of loud and disruptive works going on as a new hotel gets built. The hotel is nearly done and there are far fewer trucks of building supplies being unloaded these days when I pass by.
The street seemed very quiet when I started to record. I only noticed a few cars, cyclists, one person walking very closely by. I love how when you listen back things suddenly get interesting. Simply pointing at something (even pointing with a recorder) is enough to lift it from unnoticed, almost unnoticeable, to something imbued with significance.
Thinking of Peirce, here. I can shut my senses off to the newness of experience and file so many phenomena under the category of “there’s another one of that”. But I can also attend to some facet of experience with the indexical act of pointing. Can’t recover the newness (that’s passed by), but I can discern the path that took me from it.
Sound
Image
Figure 1: Looking down the street from where I stood.
Details
- Location
- Cuan Portobello, Portobello, Baile Átha Cliath 8
- Date
- Time
- 17:03-17:06
- Duration
- 3'18"
- Recorder
- Sony PCM-M10
- Microphones
- Built-in mics on the recorder
- Channels
- 2, Stereo
- Other notes
- Windshield covering the mics