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The next part of the process of composing was to listen with the recordingswhich had been made. Initially, I attempted to do this using headphones whilst still in the place of observation, to remain in touch with the environment. I realised that within the practice of composing (at least this stage), it was not optimal to listen to the recordings within a noisy environment. It was necessary to listen to the recordings in a studio. However, as I listened in the studio, I still felt the need to somehow be in touch with the environment as it had emerged for me inthe spaceof recording. I noticed that also as a tool of constitution, the diagrams I had been working on until that point were very useful in allowing me to understand how the environment appeared as it did. I, therefore, continued to listen to the recordings whilst also reading the diagrams. Such an interaction highlighted the specificities of these two practices. It became obvious that the specificities of diagramming offer an engagement with the environment that allowed me to understand the underpinning dynamic of the environment as a whole. I am still trying to put my finger on the exact reason for this, but it was clear during my research that the specific temporality and spatiality of this practice conditioned a very different engagement with the environment than the other practices.

The practice of composing on the other hand didn’t allow me to make sense of my environment as a wholebut rather forced me to focus on certain aspects of the environment. Therefore, the relationship and interaction between diagramming and composing proved to be quite fruitful. It conditioned a reciprocal series of checks and balances. After some time in the studio working with these two practices, I became comfortable with approaching the recorded material in the context of my environmental constitution and my focus started to move to certain aspects of my environment.

Having, therefore, noticed that composing conditioned me to focus in on specific phenomena, I decided that it might be advantageous to engage with descriptive writing at the same time, a practice which also offered me this opportunity to zoom in. Both practices conditioned a similar narrative temporality; an experience that starts at a ‘beginning’ and must be perceived in a specific order over time. In contrast, diagramming conditions a non-narrative temporality, allowing the order in which the diagram is read to be open. This specific order is dictated by the relationship between you and the diagram, which conditions a powerful process resulting in the emergence of sense.

As I listened with the recordings, the phenomena steeped in their existence in time (constant, sporadic) appeared the strongest. Listening with the recordings also conditioned a focus on the analytical (footsteps, stone, wood, plastic, doors) and behavioural (slow, busy, loud) aspects of the aural environment. They allowed me to consider how the relationship between what I heard and the order in which I heard them allowed the specific aural environment to emerge. I looked at my diagrams and texts and noticed the phenomenon of ‘constant spontaneity’, something which I could see potential in exploring through composing. I then listened to the recordings in an attempt to understand these phenomena: how do they appear as they do? This is where the next stage of composing took place; ordering audible material in time.

To begin this process, I wanted to test the specific temporality apparent with the environment, to do so I started to use tools of composing such as electro-acoustic manipulations; simple cutting, arranging and filtering, amongst others. The first technique I applied was that of granular synthesis. Granular synthesis is a form of synthesis that splits the audio into minuscule fragments or grains, as they are commonly known. It can be simply understood as a very specific way of ordering sound across time, one which also affects myriad aesthetic aspects of the sound. The result can be described as a giant evolving cloud of sound made up of tiny moving particles. By applying this technique, I wanted to explore the aspects of micro and macro, which were apparent in the environment. I searched for a closer understanding of how phenomena, such as ‘constant spontaneity’ could appear, as well as how they could appear as conditioned by the specificities of composing.

I hoped to explore the blurred line between micro and macro and the transition between the two. I chose a recording, applied the synthesis, and was left with an hour-long, ever-evolving mass made from small particles. At this point, I needed to find out how this could help me to understand the environment’s emergence. I decided to loop the original, unprocessed recording until it was one hour long and then I looped both recordings together, turned off the screen and just listened. The idea was to listen and hear with these recordings as a way to either say; yes, this is how the environment appears with me, or; no, it isn’t. Both answers would be helpful ast hey would allow me to progress. The reason I looped the recordings and turned the screen off was to try and subvert the narrative temporality, which is so prominent in composing. I didn’t want to concentrate on a type of listening conditioned by an inherent storytelling, or progression, although this was of course impossible to escape (I had to press play and stop at some point). I merely wanted to put these aspects of composing in the background to focus on other possible details. Through an attempt to let go of this temporality (although not entirely possible), I wanted to investigate what I came to understand as a specific proportional relationship between sonic events.

After listening several times, it appeared to me that the environment, or the dynamics which conditioned the emergence of the environment, were only partially present. However, the process helped me come to a closer understanding of how the specific temporality could simultaneously condition and be an emergent quality of the specific phenomena. By allowing me to re-frame my understanding, composing helped me to uncover, or to illuminate, what I referred to at the time as ‘a specific proportion’ (another moment of clarity).

                          The First Modification of Descriptive Writing

Although I modified the practice of composition slightly by trying to subvert what might be understood as the temporality normally conditioned by composing, I did not consider this a true modification of the practice. I believed that my actions would still fit into the ‘accepted’ practice of composition, in which the ordering of audible material can form a narrative, but where this is not a necessity. By contrast, were I to simply order a descriptive text in any way I saw fit, it could be assumed that I had stopped practicing descriptive writing and begun practicing another form of writing. One of the specificities of writing is that it functions in the medium of written language and by doing so forces us to deal with words, which can be seen as small containers of potential meaning—as objects—and as such provide a form of temporary clarity to the writer and the reader regarding what they refer to. Listening, as I previously stated, provides a fairly non-objectual relationship with the world. Therefore, it is no surprise that when composing, this ambiguity is also present and acts as one of the specificities that set it apart from a practice such as writing, making the way temporality emerges in both practices completely different.

This very difference inspired a modification of the descriptive writing practice. I felt the desire to try and escape some of the techniques of writing such as metaphors, similes etc., as I thought they provided a very rich, yet slightly rigid and exaggerated, interaction with my environment. I, therefore, tried to write a text without using sentences or punctuation. The result was a practice, which changed the way I engaged with my environment. Sentences regulate the speed of text; in both the way it is written and the way it is read. They can also indicate or present small encapsulated periods of time; like small building blocks. By removing my focus from the creation of sentences, I ruptured my interaction with my environment.

I started to focus on analytical aspects of the environment, whereas before the focus (as conditioned by poetic techniques like metaphor etc.) was mostly on the associative, imaginary and emotional aspects. The resultant text revealed details of the environment, some coherent and some incoherent with the ways I had experienced it until that point. This was of course helpful as it allowed my understanding to progress as I continued this process of interaction and constitution.

As my research continued,I added a fourth practice: sketching. My engagement with sketching came after a period of fruitful research that led to an understanding of my environment, ready to be re-framed and ruptured through the employment of new technologies and skills. I could feel the potential for further exploration of certain aspects of my emergent environment and chose the practice of sketching due to the influence of the three previous practices. As a visual practice, sketching offered a new perspective on these phenomena by conditioning a slightly different engagement with temporally and spatially steeped phenomena. My specific method for sketching did not involve the use of a rubber, a point that I find useful to discuss as it played a large role in the way I understood my environment. Due to my inability to erasemarks of the pencil on the page, sketching conditioned a kind of accumulative relationship, which in turn forced my attention to aspects of micro and macro activity. As can be seen in some of the sketches, each mark on the page contains information regarding both a micro and macro existence in relationship to the whole environment. Similar aspects of the environment were prominent in my engagement with composing. The inability to erase also lead to an exploration of ideas regarding the ‘in here/out there’ dynamic, exposed through writing. Sketching, therefore, helped me to further reveal the nuances of these initial understandings by forcing me to approach them in specific ways.

At the end of this engagement, I had reached a point at which I felt I could go no further with this particular method. I started with a field of possible practices and had ended with a meaningful field of practices; the artefacts of which became increasingly important to one another, as parts of this process of constitution.

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