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about

'Below Flatford Surface' is a spin-off from the installation 'Constructions for Flatford', produced for Smiths Row Gallery in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, during May and June 2011.

Using a simple, self-devised hydrophone design, I've been making underwater sound recordings since summer 2005. These have allowed me to access the sound worlds present within ponds, rivers and other freshwater bodies and shown me how some underwater habitats are rich in plant and animal life, and therefore host to a variety of sonic phenomena.

Playing with the connections between my sound based works and the landscape, I've begun to look at bodies of water as represented in landscape painting, and where such waters still exist, have started to explore them in terms of the sound they might contain.

When invited to contribute work for the show in Suffolk, I decided to make investigative recordings around Flatford Mill on the River Stour. The mill and its environs at the Suffolk and Essex border, are famous for being the location and inspiration for several works by John Constable, in particular the often reproduced painting, The Hay-wain. The mill is an icon of English heritage, along with all that that entails is ownership by the National Trust and hoards of tourists, but is also currently used by the Field Studies Council as an environmental research and education centre.

For five days in April, the FSC played host to me as I stayed in the Grade 1 listed Willy Lotts cottage and auscultated the local waters.

The mill pool and its surrounding waters, such as the river and the nearby Cattawade Marshes, were surprisingly rich and productive in terms of the sounds found therein.

Aquatic plants, such as water lilies, produced sound as damaged and still growing leaves released bubbles into the water. Also, fish could be heard as they fed and communicated and aquatic insects like Water Boatmen were heard calling to one another. The recordings of these and other things formed the raw material for Below Flatford Surface.

By accessing the sound world of these still present waters, I have in a sense been able to get under the surface of not just the water itself, but also this bucolic image of a quintessentially English, rural landscape. And by doing so, attempt to reveal it for what it also is, an unfamiliar, often alien sounding realm.

www.myspace.com/therealleepatterson

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from framework​​​:​​​seasonal :​​​:​​​: issue #1 :​​​:​​​: autumn 2011, released September 23, 2011

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framework editions is the publishing face of framework radio, which has been broadcasting and acting as a voice for the field recording community since 2002. framework is consecrated to field recording, and its use in composition. field recording, phonography, the art of sound hunting. open your ears and listen! ... more

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