Grid of nows: sound recording and the problem of time

ABSTRACT

This paper uses a collaborate sound and web design project as a beginning point for theorising sound recording and the problem of time. Inspired by the home soundscapes of COVID-19 lockdowns, the project asked volunteer recordists to record themselves preparing tea. The purpose of the project was to engage with a ritual in a way that elucidated its duration, as a means of resisting the quantification of time that dominated much of what life and bodies did during the earlier months of the pandemic. While the article does address the design and implementation of the project, it rests more on the problem of time that sound recording addresses, as a temporal, durational, relational, and communicative process.

KEYWORDS:

• Sonic inquiry
• sound recording
• Sound
• time
• audio

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Canada Research Chair in Sound Studies.

Notes on contributors

Mickey Vallee

Mickey Vallee holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Sound Studies at Athabasca University. Please see his website (www.mickeyvallee.net) for more details.