I hear the train a-coming

Site – n. 1 the position or location of a town, building, etc., esp. as to its environment. 2 the area or exact plot of ground on which anything is, has been, or is to be located v. to put in position for operation, as artillery.

Last Saturday, in search of more material, I took a train to Detroit. Before the trip I surveyed the area via aerial photographs. Apart from a bus tour and a bike ride through, I don't have much experience in Detroit.

I know it comes with a history of voyeuristic-saviour types poking around and handing out unsolicited "solutions". So, knowing that characterization is somewhat inescapable for me at the moment, I will try to tread lightly with hopes of immersion if the city comes to play a larger role in my thesis on down the road.

From the aerial survey I noted that after the Amtrak stop, the tracks continued East, curved South down through Eastern Market, and continued on to the Detroit river. My goal was a walk, forgoing maps and using the rail as a spine to structure the visit.

From the aerial survey, I also noted that the rail cut an interesting cross section of neighborhoods and landscapes through the city. The Amtrak station is at the upper west corner of the candycane (north is up). Eastern Market is the highlighted portion just to the northeast of the interstate interchange near the base.



In previous experiences, Eastern Market had caught my attention. I was there once on a Saturday morning, market at full bore, and once on a Friday evening when everything was relatively quiet. The ad hoc, temporary urbanism of the place is arresting. A barbecue joint had a karaoke station going.



Urbanism n. the way of life of people who live in a city


That pedestrian bridge, populated with vendors, is reaching over to the Gratiot Central Market. Before I-75 was built, the market was just across the street from Shed 1 (now demolished).

Since I had to catch the train back to Ann Arbor, I didn't make it all the way to the river. But on the way back to the station, in order to see some other terrain, I walked along the parallel freeway, about half a mile inside the tracks. Sandwiched between the two infrastructures, a wide variety of urbanisms are strung together, occasionally politely, with thick buffers, occasionally in tension.

immersed and propogated

"It is thought-provoking that the mental loss of the sense of centre in the contemporary world could be attributed, at least in part, to the disappearance of the integrity of the audible world."

Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin

"All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it. There came to me in the case a melody which the air had strained, and which had conversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, that portion of the sound which the elements had taken up and modulated and echoed from vale to vale."

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

apparitions

Digging up the Lucier score meant heading over to the music library. I grabbed an armful of other books while over there, confronted by ghosts of projects past. I'm excited to be diving back in, taking a pass at fulfilling unrealized potentials.


Here is my lexicon so far. There is still some refinement work to be done, and probably some more words to come.

Landscape - the sensible aspect of the relationship that links a society with space and nature.

Synaesthetic - a sensation experienced in a part of the body other than the part stimulated. 2 the subjective sensation of a sense other than the one being stimulated.

Meshwork - a multidirectional network of entangled trajectories forming a flexible but resilient structure.

Drift - to be carried slowly by a current of air or water. 2 to be blown into heaps by the wind.

Substrate - material serving as a staging platform upon which actions and construction are performed. 2 a layer of rock or soil beneath the surface of the ground. 3 material serving as a staging platform upon which actions and construction are performed.

Subsume – the act of including or absorbing in something else 2 to incorporate

Resonant – deep, clear, and ringing. 2 tending to prolong sounds 3 suggesting images, memories, or emotions.

Reverie – a daydream; fantastic, visionary, exultant or euphoric dream state.

Atmosphere – the gaseous envelope surrounding the earth. 2 a surrounding pervading mood, environment, or influence. 3 a distinctive quality, as of place; character. 4 any local gaseous environment or medium.

Immersion – the action of dipping or covering someone or something in a liquid. 2 deep involvement.

Incantation – actions performed as a magic spell or charm.

Celestial – relating to heaven, sky, or outer space.

Envelop – wrap up, cover, or surround completely.

Carve – cut into or shape a hard material to produce an object or design.

chambers

After a recovery spell at home, I am back in Ann Arbor and full effect.

The title of the blog was suggested by an Alvin Lucier score entitled Chambers:

"Collect or make large and small resonant environments.

Sea Shells
Rooms
Cisterns
Tunnels
Cupped Hands
Mouths
Subway Stations
Bowls
Shoes
Hollows
Caves
Suitcases
Ponds
Stadia
Water Spouts
Bays
Tombs
Conduits
Canyons
Boilers
Pots
Ovens
Barrels
Bulbs
Bottles
Cabins
Wells
Bells
Capsules
Craters
Empty Missiles
Cacti
Beds
Webs
Pools
Boats
Cones
Funnels
Bones
Stills
Gins
Draws
Tubes
Theatres
Cars
Springs
Flumes
Trees
Others

Find a way to make them sound.

Blowing
Bowing
Rubbing
Scraping
Tapping
Moving
Fingering
Breaking
Burning
Melting
Chewing
Jiggling
Wearing
Swinging
Bumping
Dropping
Orbiting
Creaking
Caressing
Bouncing
Jerking
Flipping
Levitating
Hating
Skimming
Ignoring
Talking
Singing
Sighing
Whistling
Walking
Snapping
Cracking
Snoring
Boring
Praying
Loving
Spraying
Bowling
Channeling
Freezing
Squeezing
Frying
Exploding
Poking
Screwing
Lowering
Shaking
Impeding
Dancing
Others
Sounds of portable resonant environments such as sea shells and cupped hands may be carried out into streets, coutrysides, parks, campuses, through buildings and houses, until outer limits are reached where minimum audio contact can be maintained by a player with at least one other player.

Sounds of the outer environment encompassed by the players may be heard with reference to the sounds of the portable resonant environments carried by the players. Sounds of determinate pitch in the outer environment may be heard in simple or complex relationships to the pitches of the portable resonant environments. Sounds of indeterminate pitch in the outer environment may be heard to take on the pitch, timbral, dynamic, and durational characteristics of the sounds of the portable resonant environments.

Sounds of fixed resonant environments such as cisterns and tunnels may be made portable by means of recordings, or radio or telephone transmission, carried into inner or outer environments. When carried into inner environments, such as theatres into beds, the sounds of the now-portable resonant environments may either mingle with or take over the sounds of the inner environment. When carried to outer environments, such as boilers into parks, the sounds of the now-portable resonant environments may be treated as original portable environments.

Mixtures of these materials and procedures may be used.

Increasing and lessinging of any characteristics of any sound may be brought about."