reflections on sonic kayaks and listening

Zoe is partially sighted and after our long watery space, movement and listening discussions back on land, I invited her to go describe and record what she could hear now, at the lakeside.  The below is a transcript of her text which you can hear in the day’s video in the next post

‘I can feel thethe heat and the sun,
really hot, and warm ….

and you can hear the the sound of seagulls in the distance.
It’s just incredibly
peaceful,
tranquil place, but at the same time, it’s actually…

with the wind it’s quite quite noisy, but quite calming
and each time you hear… I don’t know…
its a bit like water I suppose, it feels like

ripples in sound.
and it’s really … quite … therapeutic.

And you sort of feel like, even though I know there are people around, you feel like you’re
in the middle of nowhere.
Quite a way from the world in many ways even though actually you’re with nature, you’re actually here, sitting and being, feeling touching..
smelling…

And it’s an incredibly warm wind.

I think the er …

I can see some parts, I mean I can see the water
and at the very back…
I can’t make it out completely but I know, I know there’s there are sort of, windmills,
the giant windmills, the modern… modern turbines are… moving, moving the wind.

And there seems to be quite a hum
I don’t know if it’s from the turbines or if it’s something else….

But there’s a real.… a real…… erm, I don’t know, sort of now it sounds like the water but I think it’s
the wind. It’s quite difficult to differentiate between the two at times, depending on where I’m standing and moving.
As soon as you stand near I don’t know… the bushes or flora and fauna, you can block the wind but at the same time you can hear the echoes of people talking, in the background.

But the… the water’s really… really beautiful and I think maybe because the sun is shining quite brightly onto the water and it’s reflecting, so it’s moving all the time. It’s glistening really and the.., the water’s sort of.. ..

it’s dancing, it’s dancing,
the light is dancing on the water and it’s sort of moving the whole time. You’re never quite sure… where the light is because it’s just, consistently bouncing, reflecting, jumping,
it could be like fireflies it sort of looks like that in a way.

Nothing’s still even though it’s very calm here
and I think that’s what makes it quite,
quite a sort of you know an environment where you can reflect… reflect life?
reflect your feelings..

It’s actually quite …
addictive the sound of the wind.
You could spend hours just listening to it.

It sort of also sounds like the sound of the wind sounds a bit like …
sometimes when you’re at the airport and the rumble of the aeroplane that’s sort of the engines …and the turbine,

but that may be because I’m picking up sounds of the turbine, I’m really not sure. ‘

Zoe Partington,
participant.

Sonic kayak sound mapping workshop.
Trevassack Lake, Kernow. 29.08.19