THE SUNKEN HUM SOUND DIARY: a field recording/sound archive project in 365 parts
Each and everyday in 2013, I recorded two minutes of sounds from my daily life. And then, for 365 days in a row, I published the sounds to the internet to share with the world.
I embarked on this phonographic archive with a voyeuristic curiosity that stemmed from a fascination with how humans routinely spend their time and with an intrigue into the regular, recurring noises that makes up the soundscape of life. I figured the easiest way to satiate this curiosity was by dissecting my own typical day and doumenting the sounds that routinely weave themselves through my surroundings. The diary includes everything from solitary chickens singing laments to cattlemart auctioneers chanting the call of farm life to potatoes rumbling as they boxxed in the boiling hot waterpot. A selection from these daily recordings are shared here.
Capturing the recordings became a meditative practice. No matter what the chaos of life that was happening around me, for two minutes I could escape into a reality reimagined through headphones. It was like a peculiar removal from the existing moment. While the sound of the world became heightened (and nearly more alive) through the headphones, I felt simultaneously disconnected from the present, having become more an observer than a participant.
In 2019, dublin digital radio (ddr) rebroadcast the diary recordings at 12 pm and 6 pm everyday. These are the same times at which the Angelus Bell is played for one minute on Irish radio. This is a religious broadcast. Though I love the idea behind the Angelus (a minute long sound meditation), it is time to separate this meditative moment from anything to do with organised religion. Instead, I'd love to suggest that we give that moment over to the field recordists of Ireland and let them create a daily one minute broadcast that features the myriad of meditative sounds of the island. Come on RTE, sure why not?!
The Sunken Hum Broadcast 75 - The Meditative Sounds of The Drumshanbo Cattle Mart - 16 March
‘Took a stroll down to the ole' evening cattle mart in Drumshanbo. The auctioneers voice is like a meditative chant or a call to pray. I had never been to the mart before and soon noticed I was the only gal in the building (until the very end when a very well dressed nine year old mini-farmer came in with her dad).
We sat and watched this fella auctioning cattle for about an hour and he didn't stop going once. The whole time he does his chant his leg beats up and down to the rhythm of his voice. Eventually I felt like getting up and doing a little dance. But I constrained myself.’
