23rd February 2022 … Terminalia

In celebration of the ancient Roman god Terminus, god of boundaries, whose festival is 23rd February … I walked the shoreline of my imaginary lockdown island – Contención Island (https://martinpeccles.com/other-sound-works/contencion-island/). Although I’ve waked this in sections before, I have never previously walked it in one go.

So, starting at about 05:50 I walked through the dawn and ended at 10:00 – four hours – the length of the shoreline was about 11 miles and the walk total was about 12 once I add in the distance from my house to the shore. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t much of a dawn chorus along the shoreline in February … and it was quite windy … force 4 to 5 gusting 6 to 7.

I started in the small bay to the southwest and walked clockwise, with the sun; Happy Terminalia.

seven days in June: one place in seven movements

New at https://martinpeccles.bandcamp.com is an album based on seven walks in Alaska.

A place. Bounded by the Bering Sea and mountains; land lived on and from for generations. Walk, stand, look at, over and across the land; scrub, hill, marsh, river, sea, town, gold. In this composition of field recordings and poetry, through seven replicated walks I explore embodied time, distance and movement across this place. Each day re-sets the image of this place; a new walk, a fresh exploration, an open path – the same place. Each replication is walked once; sequential sections of seven walks; seven consecutive days – seven days in June – one place in seven movements.

The album comes with a bonus 2.3 metre long poem.

It’s Radiophrenia time once more

It’s Radiophrenia time once more (7th Feb to 20th Feb; https://radiophrenia.scot); a two-week long festival exploring current trends in sound and transmission art, broadcast from the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow and curated by Mark Vernon and Barry Burns.

Lots of fascinating, 24 hours a day, radio … I’ve three programmes on the schedule.

Walking Contención Island” – Wednesday 9th February 14:00-14:30; In response to “stay home” restrictions in the Covid-19 pandemic I walked into existence an imaginary island. For the first lockdown I walked from my house; I recorded my walking and mapped my route; I make Contención Island; I walk until easing begins – 42 days. In the second lockdown I walk the shoreline – 28 stretches of coastline; different lengths; I walk one each day; over 28 days I re-build an island across time. In the third lockdown I walked to places using chance operations and record sounds for randomly determined periods of time – 83 sounds of randomness.

Seven Days in June” – Sunday 13th February 07:00-09:00; A place. Bounded by the Bering Sea and mountains; land lived on and from for generations. Walk, stand, look at, over and across the land; scrub, hill, marsh, river, sea, town, gold. In this composition of field recordings and poetry, through seven replicated walks I explore embodied time, distance and movement across this place. Each day re-sets the image of this place; a new walk, a fresh exploration, an open path – the same place. Each replication is walked once; sequential sections of seven walks; seven consecutive days – seven days in June – one place in seven movements.

In the south of an imaginary island” – Sunday 20th February 06:30-09:00; This work was composed as my contribution to a collaborative group walking project (described in full at https://martinpeccles.com/other-sound-works/landlinks/) prompting encounters with our environments. To avoid ‘attachment’ to subjects by searching out those that are ‘interesting’ and to let go of the desire to find the definitive subject and to leave that choice to chance, the walk was governed by a ‘time/distance script’ to choreograph activity. Over 20 international artists responded to a series of chosen stopping points and at each were asked to moderate their gaze and choice of subject by adhering to various ‘prompt’ words.

Lots to listen to … catch it live ‘cos it isn’t archived …