passage by Nicholas Maloney

The Port of Cork moves between sleeping and waking. In the Winter months, the large warehouse is empty. Traces, remnants, and memories of a place that was a busy marketplace just months prior. I move silently in the dark, damp metallic shell of this dormancy, listening to the walls, the contours, the reverberations of the greater environment, the last open café whose music drifts into my field of sensation. The place’s sleep becomes alive through my participation, amplified through my mechanical interaction and physical presence. While the warehouse begins to wake, I move outside where signals are sounding. The dock moves as I move through it, ducking around industrial equipment and massive vehicles that take no heed to my presence. I revisit this place again and again as Spring emerges from the slumber of Winter. As activity increases at the warehouse, my interactions with the space disperse to the perimeter where I find solace, listening to the inner echoes of a variety of metal fencing, large vents that veil the constant drone of traffic, electrical boxes whose inner articulations go unnoticed by passersby, wind made visible and audible by the movement of weeds and the flapping of caution tape, hidden glimpses beneath the water of a ship engine idling. The warehouse marketplace comes to life once again. Ships and cranes go about their business as swarms of pedestrians suddenly appear in this once quiet place. I hide just out of sight from the bustling activity that surrounds, immersed in the experientially of this sensory field. The patterns continue to unfold as I find my place within them. These nine sonic compositions were born from a series of recording sessions and interactions with the Port of Cork and marina warehouse during the Winter and Spring months of 2021. While these pieces take inspiration from the space itself, they exist as non-representational explorations of the gathered environmental sound and sonic interactions through various processes of reduction, enhancement, and manipulation.

(Nicholas Maloney, 3 June 2021)

a thematic ltd series focusing primarily on phonographies reflecting the spirit of a specific place crowded with memories, its aura & resonances and our intimate interaction with it…

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