FIELD RECORDINGS
Friday 9 November
Sites and sounds: work by Joshua Bonnetta
19:30 – 20:30 Listening session
Cactus (Cactaceae sp.) from Folklore of Plants (2017, audio work on LP, 3 min.)
Cactus (Cactaceae sp.) traces the resonant frequencies of the cactus plant in the Sonoran desert. Percussive clicks mingle with elemental forces in this study of vegetal life.
Lago (2016, audio work on LP, 23.55 min.)
Composed in dialogue with the photographic work of Ron Jude, Lago presents an acoustic ecology of the area around the Salton Sea: a site of environmental degradation in the Southern Californian desert. Voices of area residents mix with ambient sounds of natural and built environment — attuning us towards, before defamiliarising, human and non-human relations.
Bay of Broken Things (2017, audio work on cassette, 25 min.)
This tape, a map of sorts, resituates recordings of five disparate islands into an archipelago built up from layers of sound fragments. A study in accretion and the sedimentary parallels of geological formations and sound design; islands imagined as repositories for environmental memory, above and below.
20:30 – 21:15 Conversation
Intrusions and Northern American sounds: Hannah Paveck (Another Gaze; King’s College London) in conversation with Joshua Bonnetta about his audio pieces and about the interaction between sound and image in his film works.
21:30 – 22:45 Film program 1
American Colour (2012, 16mm/digital file, 25 min.)
American Colour proposes a personalized history of 16mm Kodachrome film, from its birthplace in upstate New York to its latest site of production in Kansas. An experimental homage to celluloid.
Strange Lines and Distances (2013, 16mm/digital file, 50 min.)
Originally a two-channel installation, Strange Lines and Distances is inspired by the idea that
sound waves never die, but diminish becoming incrementally fainter over time. The film is an attempt to listen to the echoes of the past – and reverberates some of Joshua Bonetta’s more ethnographic soundscapes.
Continuous: Installation
Excerpt preview edit of Caolas na Hearadh (The Sound of Harris) (2019) by Joshua Bonnetta
A cinematic study of sound, light, and place, filmed in the Scottish Islands of the Outer Hebrides between the darkest and brightest days of the year. Super 16mm cinematography interwoven with site-specific field recordings, found archival sound, and recorded interviews are used as a departure point to explore the relationship between place, narrative, perception, and the physical environment.
Saturday 10 November
Landscapes portrayed: El Mar La Mar
16:00 – 18:00 Film program 2
Silence (Pat Collins, 2012, digital file, 97 min.)
A fictional landscape film, Silence chronicles the journey of Eoghan, a sound recordist. He returns to Ireland for the first time in fifteen years to record terrains that are free from human-made sounds. Silence traces how deeply ingrained humanity is in the earth’s myriad landscapes. With an introduction by Joshua Bonnetta.
19:30 – 19:45 Introduction El Mar La Mar by Sander Hölsgens
Short lecture by dr. Sander Hölsgens, visual anthropologist, filmmaker and co-programmer of FIELD RECORDINGS.
19:45 – 21:15 Film program 3
El Mar La Mar (Joshua Bonnetta & J.P. Sniadecki, 2017, 16mm/digital file, 94 min.)
El Mar La Mar approximates the experience of having no choice but traversing the Sonoran Desert on the border between Mexico and the United States. Polyphonic at its core, the film continuously transitions between anecdotes, modes of (non)human communication, compositional and sonic strategies, and the filmic rendering of borders that are barely borderlike. Followed by a Q&A with Joshua Bonnetta.
Continuous: Installation
Excerpt preview edit of Caolas na Hearadh (The Sound of Harris) (2019) by Joshua Bonnetta
A cinematic study of sound, light, and place, filmed in the Scottish Islands of the Outer Hebrides between the darkest and brightest days of the year. Super 16mm cinematography interwoven with site-specific field recordings, found archival sound, and recorded interviews are used as a departure point to explore the relationship between place, narrative, perception, and the physical environment.
Sunday 11 November
Treaded Territories
11:00 – 13:30 Joshua Bonnetta meets WORM Filmwerkplaats
Members of WORM Firmwerkplaats discuss their work with Field recording’s main guest Joshua Bonnetta. (by registration only: tim@worm.org)
14:00 – 15:30 Film program 4
025 Sunset Red (Laida Lertxundi, 2016, 16mm, 14 min.)
Located between autobiographical storytelling and experimental cinema, 025 Sunset Red orients the reds of The Basque Country and Southern California towards each other. Filmed and screened on 16mm.
Optimism (Deborah Stratman, 2018, Super 8/digital file, 15 min.)
Filmed in Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Optimism searches for an earthly exchange between history and presence. Part ethnography, part experimental film, it works towards a poetics of place – across times and generations.
Artificial Paradise (Chick Strand, 1986, 16mm, 12 min.)
A textural interpretation of humanity and its landscapes, Artificial Paradise rethinks the Aztec people and the anthropologist’s desire to embrace their cultural remnants. Filmed and screened on 16mm.
Walking Fire (Nina de Vroome, 2017, digital file, 10 min.)
An exercise in improvisational filmmaking, Walking Fire is a spontaneous and pedagogical exploration of Szèk, Romania. Composed of filmic threads by Nina De Vroome and her students, the film showcases the playful potential of contemporary anthropological cinema. Followed by a Q&A between Nina de Vroome and fellow filmmaker Kaya Erdinç.
16:00 – 18:00 Film program 5
Eldorado XXI (Salome Lamas, 2016, digital file, 125 min.)
ELDORADO XXI verges on an ethnography of the world’s highest settlement, La Rinconada y Cerro Lunar in the Peruvian Andes. Distressing and claustrophobic, it sketches the outlines of a seemingly inhospitable and certainly precarious place.
19:30 – 21:30 Film program 6
Manakamana (Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez, 2013, 16mm, digital file, 118 min.)
High above a jungle in Nepal, pilgrims make an ancient journey by cable car to worship Manakamana. The eponymous project presses close to structural film, showing 11 cable car trips in their entirety via most stunning of long takes.
Continuous: Installation
Excerpt preview edit of Caolas na Hearadh (The Sound of Harris) (2019) by Joshua Bonnetta
A cinematic study of sound, light, and place, filmed in the Scottish Islands of the Outer Hebrides between the darkest and brightest days of the year. Super 16mm cinematography interwoven with site-specific field recordings, found archival sound, and recorded interviews are used as a departure point to explore the relationship between place, narrative, perception, and the physical environment.