This week sees the first of two releases we have planned for March 2023. This first one, from guest contributor Christopher Rogers, is an eerie piece of audio documenting the sounds of ordinary domestic spaces.
This piece, framed as a soundtrack to a dismal, atmospheric photograph, works right at the intersection of two ongoing GL projects: it focuses on the everyday and the ordinary at the same time that it brings out the “ecogothic’ dimensions of those ordinary living spaces (their insides, their outsides, and the passages between them).
About the project, Rogers writes:
“This recording attempts to soundtrack a photo taken on a foggy day in a backyard in Waterloo, Ontario, when the weather gave the usually vibrant space a feeling of eeriness and abandonment.
“The audio experiments with blurring the boundaries of human and natural spaces by reimagining an everyday activity – going outside – through an ecogothic lens. Interior or human space is signaled initially with the drone of a furnace followed by a sliding door. The recording then transitions to the backyard space where bird songs and road noise are layered to create a sense of liveliness. A familiar sliding door sound signals a return indoors, where a turntable can be heard skipping. Time stretching and reverb are added throughout the recording to emphasize the strangeness of these everyday sounds.”
The Gothic Listening Project 