PROJECT DIARY FOR ROBERT JARVIS’ SOUND INSTALLATION FOR CHONGQING’S NEW PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT MUSEUM

31 August—30 September 2005

WEDNESDAY, 31 AUGUST 2005

Autumn Tigers

This first day has mostly been concerned with the sorting out of various technical details such as choosing the best loudspeakers for the sound installation and sorting out internet access for my hotel apartment.

On this visit I am based in the centre of the Yu Zhong district, of which its London equivalent would probably be Piccadilly Circus/Oxford Street. Needless to say, the area is awash with sound, but not just from shoppers and motor vehicles. Almost everywhere you look there is major development in operation – pavements are being resurfaced, buildings are being built and even a new subway entrance appears to be being dug out. And, these sounds literally surround those walking around the city centre – from the splitting of stones at foot level to the cicada-type sound of a pneumatic drill appearing to emanate from the top of a skyscraper.

I was told that the weather has been rather cool lately (by Chinese standards), and from today it is expected to get hotter. Apparently, mini-hot seasons of 10-12 days at the end of the summer are not uncommon and are referred to as ‘autumn tigers’.

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 11:38 PM   

THURSDAY, 01 SEPTEMBER 2005

Advertising

Public adverts that use sound as well as moving image are becoming more common in developed areas. There’s a new cinema-screen style advertising board, for example, opposite the Jie Fang Bei clock tower broadcasting speech and music as well as cinematic advertisements over the sound of roadworks, traffic, shops blaring their muzak(s) and general city centre hubbub. The overall soundscape is a confusing mixture of human, mechanical and digitally produced sounds mostly connected with the development of the city centre and the selling of goods.

Amazingly enough, these sounds don’t seem to travel that far – probably because of all the buildings. (Sound doesn’t travel well round corners.) Although still audible, their intensity is quickly lost when one escapes the blare of 21st-century life by exploring the many twisting lanes for which this city is famous. There the sounds are quieter and connected with home life and independent traders against a backdrop of distant modern city noise.

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 11:50 PM   

FRIDAY, 02 SEPTEMBER 2005

Deadlines

I’m finding it an interesting puzzle to ponder which sounds to record for eventual use in my sound installation. Which sounds, for example, best sum up the Chongqing soundscape, and for how long might this be true? So much of the sound (in volume) currently is coming from developmental work, such as: road works, pavement laying, building and refurbishment. Surprisingly, as so little machinery is used for this work, the result is sonically more rich than the more usual drone of heavy power tools used in other countries.

There is an immediate purpose to all of this: from 11th –14 October, Chongqing is to host the Asian Pacific Cities Summit. This is a major coup for the city as delegates from at least 96 foreign cities will descend on the city for this event focusing on the harmonious development of city, humankind and nature – at least that what it says in the advertising blurb.

So as I work on my installation, collecting, editing and manipulating sounds, Chongqing is working day and night in preparation of its own big event. My question is: what will the city sound like after this huge development project is complete? I am therefore trying to listen through these pre-summit sounds and pay attention to what lies underneath. Not that the city’s development will cease completely after 10 October: I understand, for example, that the building of an art gallery has been scheduled for later on in the year, overlooking the harbour…

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 11:48 PM   

SATURDAY, 03 SEPTEMBER 2005

Exercising

Located throughout the city are various keep-fit ‘play areas’. Instead of swings and roundabouts for the young, these are brightly coloured metallic contraptions for exercising the arms, legs and back, and used by all ages. This exercise machines all appear to be in good condition – probably they are polished and serviced regularly, as seems to be the case for most public objects – but occasionally you do find the squeaky one.

Apart from that, the exercise comes from the layout of the city: Chongqing is known as the ‘Mountain City’ and there are steps everywhere. It is said that the climbing up and down of the mountain steps every day gives the locals a good physique. These factors contribute to the city’s sonic identity: from sandals slapping on stone as people descend the steps to the fact that the place is not easy to cycle round, and so (unusually for China) there are very few bicycles here, but many more motor vehicles.

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 11:59 PM   

SUNDAY, 04 SEPTEMBER 2005

Religious Sounds

Scattered throughout the city are temples for worship. They all seem to have the same architectural form in as much as they possess an outer gate (where the admission fee is collected), a pathway with stalls selling religious artifacts leading to an inner courtyard, and then the main temple for group worship with smaller grottos for more individual reflections.

In this inner area the sounds from the city are masked by the architecture, and so the area provides a solace from the bustle of the outside world; however, religion has its own sounds.

Here, the main sonic feature is the bell, and in the larger temples these range in size depending on their religious function (and with an appropriate price attached). If this instrument was chosen originally for its sustaining quality, then this seems to have been lost through repetition. Today, as the temple-goers have the bell struck, they quickly move on rather than wait for the sound to completely die away.

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 11:45 PM   

MONDAY, 05 SEPTEMBER 2005

Footwear

The traditional shoes of the Chinese are sandals and these have their own particular sound as their wearers slide their feet along the ground as they make their way. The pace is often slow, perhaps because it’s difficult to run with sandals, perhaps because the wearers are tired.

In the city, however, more people wear shoes. This replaces the lazy drawn-out sound of the slip-on with the shorter tap of the shoe. In fact, in the centre, people are more fashionable generally as they buy in to the lifestyle offered to them by all the ‘trendy’ shops.

Of course, with the change of footwear also comes the lifestyle that accompanies it. The adverts here use the imagery of the cool and fast. It does seem to be that the more one looks like the people on the adverts, the quicker the tempo of walking.

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 11:51 PM   

TUESDAY, 06 SEPTEMBER 2005

Mystery Sound

Normally, first thing in the morning (and before the big shops open at eight), the city’s open spaces are used by the locals for their morning exercise – from badminton to t’ai chi.

The t’ai chi groups often provide their own soundtracks, played on accompanying portable CD players, and playing gentle traditional folk music. If one stands in the right place, it is possible to hear all these recordings blend into one pentatonic blur.

Because of the heavy rain this morning the centre square it was not filled as normal with people using the space, and so other sounds were apparent that are so quiet they are normally disguised by the background ambient noise. One sound in particular caught my interest: a sort of distant fanfare played twice at 7.10am, and then again at 7.30am. So far, everyone I have asked doesn’t know what the sound could be, but I am sure I will eventually find out…

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 11:58 PM   

WEDNESDAY, 07 SEPTEMBER 2005

Reflecting

As the city quietens down at night, it is possible to hear the space as the details of how the sound ricochets from one building to another becomes more apparent.

Although the streets remain fairly crowded (and the shops open) until late, things begin to calm down from around ten. First of all the shops close, turning off their different musics that normally broadcast onto the street, and around the same time any audio-visual advertising is either turned off or, at least, has the sound turned down. Next is the turn of the buses, which stop their services around 10.30pm helping to further cut down on the background noise.

With much of the continuous daytime noise stopped, it is the turn of the shorter sounds, such as footsteps, occasional taxi klaxons, and the hammering coming from the road workers and building developers who will be working throughout the night. From this time, until when it all begins again the following morning, these sounds are given their own reverb as they bounce round the town.

All this ambient white noise presents me with various recording challenges. It’s not that the sounds that I want to record can’t be heard – it’s that all the background noise masks the detail. As well as this, as l layer my various recordings to structure my composition it is unhelpful if l am also accumulating an accompanying (and increasing) noise track, and so to get round this I carefully record, edit and clean each sound; however, this is not a quick job.

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 11:56 PM   

THURSDAY, 08 SEPTEMBER 2005

Mah-Jong Heaven

In this city at least, the locals use their recreation time playing card games, chess, mah-jong or their version of the popular ‘scissors-paper-stone’ game, known locally as hua cian. A walk down the alleyways in the evening therefore is peppered with the sounds of cards or chess pieces slapping on tables, the shuffling of mah-jong pieces, or the shouts of the hua cian game (which are often accompanied by a drinking forfeit). With the exception of hua cian, most of these recreational pastimes are quiet enough activities although at times they do become heated.

I’ve been trying to record some mah-jong shuffling for about a week now, but have been finding it difficult to get close enough to a game without being seen to intrude. Imagine my delight therefore when upon sitting down in a quiet enclosure for lunch I was joined on either side by two tables of earnest mah-jong players.

I think in every case I have experienced so far, these games have been played by adults. The young appear to favour computer games, which they play either at home or in the growing number of shops full of computer consoles expressly for that purpose and which spill a newer, multi-layered, digital sound into the already congested Chongqing soundscape.

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 11:00 PM   

FRIDAY, 09 SEPTEMBER 2005

Meeting Points

Chongqing city is at the meeting point of two large rivers: the river Jialing to the north and the Yangtze to the south. Where they meet is at Chaotianmen harbour –- the most eastern tip of the Yu Zhong district. This is also where one dis/embarks from/on the various cruise ships travelling the river.

Some of these vessels sleep 400 or more passengers as well as staff, and so have a significant audible as well as visible presence as they contribute a range of sounds: from their funnel blasts as they leave or depart port to their continual engine noise, which resonates as a low D providing the harmonic context for everything else. On the bigger ships there is sometimes a small military band to welcome the passengers to Chongqing. Surprisingly, the music sounds tinny and distant from the harbour’s edge, unlike the thick-sounding funnel blasts which I can hear easily from my hotel apartment on the 27th floor in the city centre.

Overlooking the harbour is the soon-to-be completed Planning And Development Museum, which is where my installation is to open at the end of this month. It’s a long way from being completed however, and so they are working on it 24 hours a day. This means that whatever time one visits, the harbour soundscape is punctuated by the sharp sounds of construction. It’s interesting to think that we are working to the same deadline, though thankfully not the same schedule (not yet anyway).

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 11:49 PM   

SATURDAY, 10 SEPTEMBER 2005

Walking The Bird

Perhaps the pet that makes the most significant sonic contribution to city life is the song bird. They can be heard early in the morning emanating from the grouped towers of flats when people wake and remove the cage covers. (In fact, the flat balconies look a little like cages themselves.) For bird cacophony, the place to be is the morning bird market where an assortment of foods, cages and song birds can be purchased.

My favourite encounter of the feathered kind so far though has to be at Pi Pa Shan Park. It appears that is more common to take your pet songbird from the home for some exercise rather than, say, the dog, and on this occasion it is vocal exercise. Their owners find a comfortable spot and, with the aid of a long pole, hang the caged bird from a branch of a tree and then sit close by and listen to their prized possession.

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 8:48 PM   

SUNDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 2005

Food

All over the city food related sounds contribute to the score of everyday life – from the hubbub of the huge indoor markets to the tiny tearing of wood when disposable chopsticks are separated.

Apart from the supermarkets, food is mainly purchased from individual traders who either set their produce out wherever they have set up or carry it around, usually in baskets that hang from either end of a thick bamboo stick. Whichever method is used their presence is made known by shouting out of their wares, and often in competition with the other sellers near by.

The toffee seller doesn’t use his voice and yet his presence can be heard from the largest distance. He carries his produce as one slab which he breaks off using a special hammer and chisel and he uses these tools to tap out a two-tone rhythm of the name of what he is selling.

There is much eating out to be done in Chongqing, and one doesn’t have to travel far before the sound of cooking food informs the listener what might be being served around the corner. The easiest to identify are perhaps the gentle white-noise roar of the dim sum (dumpling) steamer and, of course, the sizzle and scrape of the wok. My favourite though is the gentle chink of china in the quieter of the teahouses that are scattered across the city offering peaceful recluse.

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 11:34 PM   

MONDAY, 12 SEPTEMBER 2005

Traffic

The car is a recent phenomenon in China and is still driven according to cycling rules, where it is acceptable to overtake on either side, hop up onto the pavement or take risky shortcuts.

About 50 percent of the vehicles in Chongqing are taxis and so they also have an influence on the general traffic flow. As they charge by distance travelled as opposed to journey time, it is in their interest to complete the journey as quickly as possible, and so they weave in and out of the traffic using their horns to make their presence known as if they were competing for fastest public service driver. It can be an exhilarating ride and is well worth the fare in terms of excitement factor alone. Most surprisingly, all the cars seem to be free from dents.

To hear the city before the morning build up of traffic, one must be out on the streets before 6.30am. At that time the main traffic sound is just an occasional engine and accompanying klaxon, but within an hour this builds up to a noisy backdrop that continues in intensity until around 10pm, when over the next four hours it reduces to its occasionally sounding status.

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 10:35 PM   

TUESDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER 2005

Trolleys

Trolleys are used in abundance throughout the city for the transportation of goods and come in a range of sizes. The largest are cart sized, big enough that one would expect a horse to be pulling, except the job is done by a man, often with helpers pushing from behind. Other versions are the size of wheelbarrows, and like the larger versions run on what looks like old fashioned rubber tyre bicycle wheels.

It is the smaller trolleys that make the most sound. The importance of their contribution to the Chongqing soundscape is down to the material construction of their wheels. Made of metal, they generate their own characteristic sound as they interact with the surface below them, and can be heard from afar as they approach and then as they trundle off into the distance. As much of the city centre is pedestrianised, the sound produced changes depending on the size and design of the tiled paving. Smaller tiles produce faster rhythms than large ones, whilst the sound on Tarmac has a dense rain-like quality to it.

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 11:38 PM   

WEDNESDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 2005

Eel Fresco

Chongqing is full of unsupposing places to eat, and there seems to be no end to them as I investigate the myriad of lanes throughout the city. These eateries rarely consist of more than one room and often extend onto the open street. As all the food is cooked fresh, a meal in such a place is accompanied by the sounds of the kitchen.

In these alleyways the sounds often appear more intimate anyway as their volume is increased by the reflection offered by the close-knit architecture as well as being played against a quieter backdrop, and so the careful listener will notice much which is not audible in the bigger restaurants in the city.

Sounds such as the soft, wet slap of meat being turned over on a wooden chopping board or the gentle swipe of the carving knife through the joint provide a contrast to the scraping out of the wooden rice barrel to make room for the next batch. The generally faster chopping of different vegetables being cut in different ways also adds variation to the accompanying soundtrack.

Not all these sounds are necessarily welcome when eating, however: my last two meals have been accompanied by the methodical chop and scrape of the butcher’s knife as it is cut through the throats of live eels as they are prepared for the next meal.

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 10:52 PM   

THURSDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER 2005

Rain

When it rains here, it pours, and the city is cleared of its usual traffic of pedestrian shoppers. Life still goes on however, although with an adjusted soundscape. With the streets cleared as people take shelter, the lack of action provides space for the discerning of other sounds which normally have to compete with the business of a crowded city centre.

The metal-wheeled trolleys seem louder as the clatter of their wheels over the paving can be heard to reverberate around the central square. Sandals, too, sound different when they become saturated with water: they no longer shuffle but squelch. For passing vehicles, the fizz of the wet car tyres on Tarmac takes precedence over the engine noise. From the buildings, heavy drips of rain water fall and play never-ending complicated rhythms as the water hits the ground. Gushing overflow pipes produce a hard spattering sound as the water hits the concrete below, the only relief being when a passing umbrella momentarily passes underneath, breaking the flow and producing a dramatic drum-roll type effect.

And then, of course, there are the cries of the umbrella sellers. As soon as it rains, out they come offering a new sound world of the dull crackle of the rain on the fabric above and the magnified reflections of the sounds at feet level, as well as portable shelter for only 20 yuan (£1.37/ $2.47 or 20 bus trips, four taxi rides, two small meals).

POSTED BY ROBERT JARVIS AT 11:48 PM   

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