Recorded Delivery

https://www.audioh.com/projects/recorded_delivery.html




Recorded Delivery began when I encountered an invitation in the lift addressed to all students at the Royal College of Art. It described a situation essentially, and asked for reponses. An exhibition of the selections was to be called ‘Self Storage’ and curated/run by the Art Angel organisation in conjunction with Brian Eno and Laurie Anderson. We [the students] were invited to propose an idea which was to be inspired by the location of the exhibition, a Self-Storage Centre sited next to Wembley Stadium in London. It was an intriguing prospect, a building composed of anonymous rooms filled with random clutter from everyday life invaded by artists. My first thought was instinctively to visit the site and search out some inspiration derived by the subtleties of the interior and the act of discovering the space. When I inquired as to when I could do this I was told that it was impossible for me/everyone to do so. This then presented quite a problem for me. How could you do an installation that was specific to the exact space/environment of the installation without even experiencing it?

The answer was quite a simple one as it turned out. The very nature of the building was itself fascinating. Rooms and rooms filled with boxes of objects that were often moved from place to place. It was these boxes that were the essence of its purpose. So what could be derived from this? They were indeed specific to each room, and to all but their owners, a secret. Each room and each box was a mystery lying dormant, and each of these boxes had been taken from a specific destination to arrive at this new location. This was the genesis of my idea

By simply sending an object to the designated room of my proposed installation, I would actually be creating a site-specific work. How to make this an interesting reality was the next stage. I imagined that these parcels had stories to tell us about their history. Stamps and addresses told only a fraction of this story. By being able to ‘record’ it’s journey I would then be creating an interesting level of information for the audience, one that was previously unknown. An audio record is a method of doing this within the framework of ‘real-time’, but presents the technological difficulty of how to capture up to 15 hours of data [for an overnight delivery]. Even if it was easily and cost effectively achievable, the result would be, in my opinion, too drawn out and pedestrian. Moments of sonic interest would be dispersed too widely for a drifting audience. The problem of how to condense this ‘time’ element started me thinking of suitable.

The invention of the ‘voice activated’ function in dictaphones/tape recorders was intended to enable recordings of information in a stationary context. What interested me about this function was firstly its automation and secondly that the sound level itself was taken to be the important determinant. Loud or ‘Interesting’ sounds were given a status, and calm or silence was ignored which was of obvious use to me. The tape recorder itself would automatically edit the recording, allowing an ‘essential’ selection to be made influenced by the fundamental specifics of the proposed journey itself. It would in essence produce a truncated ‘impression’ of its trip rather than a perfect document. In my research of what was available on the high street I found a Panasonic model which used full size standard cassettes, and as these could record up to 120 minutes it was an ideal solution. Not only could it be used to record inside the parcel, but also play back during the installation and thus create a vital visual and conceptual link for the audience. What was also extremely useful about this model was the ‘level’ function, which was like a hearing aid for the recorder. This sensitivity dial could be rather crudely tuned to pick up only the ‘right’ levels of sonic events. These included the vibration caused by the actual handling of the parcel itself while on its journey and the atmospheric sound events heard throughout its trip.

Through very rudimentary tests I set about preparing the dictaphone for its inaugural journey. Using blue-tack I fixed the sensitivity dial to where I hoped would be the best setting for all the unknowable sound events yet to be encountered. I manufactured a purpose built cardboard parcel covered in standard brown packaging tape. A special hole was made in the cardboard lid to allow the microphone to be fixed to the underside of the thin film of packaging tape. By doing so, the sounds from outside the parcel could be most clearly captured, and the very fact that this was happening was thus disguised from the prying eyes of the post office workers. I addressed and posted the sealed parcel from the local post office, and waited for the results overnight.
On collecting it from Acorn Self-Storage the following day I returned to the studio at college to discover the results. Firstly the dictaphone had recorded only just over an hour of sound, and not, as I had feared run out of tape. Secondly it was an exciting experience listening back to it, discovering for the first time the secrets within. The actual quality of the sounds were good, and an interesting, persistent sound punctuated the recording; the sound of the tape starting up and stopping. Listening all the way through it was clear that it had captured the whole range of atmospheres and events possible. Staff behind counters, sliding van doors, distant radio’s, singing postmen, vans in transit, clunks of the package, and by far the most exciting and unexpected sound of the early shift sorting staff swearing profusely about their alleged previous nights sexual exploits. The recording took us all the way to the parcel being signed for at the self-storage centre.

The presentation of this information and the concept was fairly simple. I enclosed the tape recorder in a ‘transparent floating plinth’ with the open parcel either side of it divulging and shedding its contents to reveal the mystery. The installation was set up as a series of clues which pieced together the whole story. If you were inquisitive you could easily understand the process and concept by listening and looking.

A few years later this recording was released as part of a 7" series on Hot Air records. The total recording was for this purpose subjectively edited in order to fit it on the format and consequently further maximise the highlights. The A side contained the evening part of the journey, and the B side the morning sorting and arrival. This was released in an edition of 500 pressed in Post Office red vinyl. To conclude, it may be interesting to note that when I conceived and executed Recorded Delivery I was concurrently designing a new Post Office building for my architecture course. This installation was certainly enlightening research into its interior realm.