I have lived in London for nearly all of the last 40 years and as a result many places in the city have particular resonances due to personal history and life events. Many of these places have layers of resonances going back through the years.The aim of Sound System Mapping is to look creatively at these sites, work through the history, and look for any meta-themes, or insights from a psycho-geographical perspective.
This project is still in a development stage and these pages are about sharing work in progress. Any comments welcome.
My practice for each site has been fairly standard and involves:
A first visit to take photos and reflect on significant events.
Composing a music sketch, either as a solo artist or in collaboration, that expresses the range of emotions linked to the site.
Purchasing a cheap, preferably second hand, ghetto blaster.
Abandoning the ghetto blaster, playing the track on repeat on CD, and walking away.
Writing up the experience and documenting the project on-line
It is really important for me to not stay around after I leave the track playing. This is about re-programming my history rather than composing music for an intended audience.
There are echoes here of when I moved back to London from Bristol in ’94 and was driven to communicate through leaving mix tapes on cash machines. Many of the copies of my CD The P4 Collection had a similar distribution method.
I hope you enjoy!
Chas
November 2012