Assignment 5: Quietest Place

Here we go with number five, and it feels as though we've gone back to the themes of the first task. Both tasks seem to have a theme of exploration and searching, though the subject of location and destination are handled quite differently.

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Here be the rules:

1. Go outside
2. Listen to the surroundings
3. Walk towards the quietest direction
4. Continue until you find the quietest possible location
5. Document via photography or video and share.

This is probably the simplest task that been revealed to us so far, requiring absolutely no preparation outside of a clear schedule, and the ability to locate sound. Again, it's like the first assignment in that it's about finding a specific point, but it's unlike it in that the point is not predefined, but instead discovered via comparison.

We both decided to do this on a Friday evening from 6. I decided to take nothing with me by the house keys, some cue cards, and a pen. I planned to make a note of everything we could hear in the various locations we stood in while Lucy brought her camera. We agreed that we would not communicate with each other vocally throughout the task in order to not pollute the area with further noise.

First things first, I made a note of what I could hear just outside of the door. We need to start somewhere. We heard voices discussing things, a woman cheering "woo hoo!", seagulls laughing, on coming cars, people walking with thunderous footsteps, bicycles cycling by, a security alarm going off nearby, the crinkle of shopping bags being carried. I thought we lived in a quiet area, but I guess not.

And so down the road lest heard.

Following the lack of sound.

On our walk, we came across what seemed to be a small graveyard attaching on from the street.

The saying goes "As quiet as the grave", though we heard plenty. Of this plenty included a passing car, children in the outskirts, footsteps walking with purpose, a door opening, a far of radio playing a strong beat, and a woman talking on the phone from the other side of the street.

She was noisy!

However, the nosiest thing about this little grave sight were the birds, my goodness the birds! The loudest orchestra of tweeting and fluting amplified by the size of the trees. This was not our quietest location.

And so we continue through the urban landscape.

And this then brings us to silent location number two, a small parking area surrounded by residential buildings.

It was fairly quiet compared to the road we just left, and there was a subtle stillness in the air.

It also occurred to me that we were surrounded by windows, giving the feel of the place akin to a modern arena, anyone could see us from any one of these rooms, should they be inclined to look.

After standing there for a while, the stillness dissolved, and sounds started peering out of the cracks. The cry of children calling after parents and playing with their peers, far off cars moving from the other side of the buildings, the sound of cluttered objects being moved, piled on and collapsed, babies crying out for reasons only they know.

After a bit more walking, we stumbled into a main road, and all the sound that comes with it.

Though we continued on our way, sure that we would find another slice of peace just beyond the next group of buildings.

And so we enter location number three.

This one was another little spit of road designed for parking. Listening deeply, only a few details became auditory, a doorbell, some children playing in the distance, the far cars, the near cars, and the ever present birds with their songs. It was now quiet enough to distinguish between the distance of traffic, progress was being made.

So we've been out for about an forty minutes or so, hunting for silence, when out of nowhere...

...this little alcove presents itself...

...and then turns out to be another piece of road, very easy to miss.

Walking down this road gave us a very strange feeling, though neither of us could recall exactly why.

The road persisted with a sharp turn at a harsh corner, a corner punctuated with the remains of a building.

Suddenly, as we stood there, a great roar of power swerved through the air, as an airplane dashed above us, making this the single most noisy area we had encountered.

But once it had passed, we started to listen to the normality of the background, very little could be heard except for some live drumming accompanied by song in the far off distance, and a man unicycling home.

We walked a little further past the harsh corner, and almost immediately the music flew out of earshot. For a while, the only audible thing was the ever present sound of birds, and a young child with her, father calling to each other about eating biscuits from within one of the biudlings, of which we could hear every exchange between them. 

And then their stopped talking. The birds were all there was, and soon they too flew further and further away. We had found it, our fifth, and final location.

This was it, our quietest place. Something about that harsh bend managed to eat up any sound that came that way. But it wasn't just that lack of sound that made it quiet, the area was still. All the buildings were made up of flat vertical lines with flat horizontal roofs, it was this strict two-dimensionality that gave the area its feel. We made our way back home.

Talking later, Lucy told me that there was something that scared her during our walk, a constant thought that something bad might occur, that we might be attacked. It's strange to think that such feelings can be felt so close to home, but when navigating the local unknown, the unknown really begins to take effect. She tells me that she felt very tense every time we entered a quieter place, that it felt unwelcoming.

However, it wasn't completely negative, we did have fun on our walk, and we managed to see some amazing things:

A little tree in full bloom

Shoes suspended on a phone line

Hot air balloons drifting gracefully

Remarkably silent cats

Some intricate door art

And an incredible mural.

Bristol has a reputation for street art, and living here can get you rather indifferent about it, thinking you've seen all the street art there is to see. But there's always something new in a hidden cranny of the city, away from normal routes. And in the end, this is what I think this project is really about, discovery. Discovery of silence amongst the noisy, discovery of new amongst the familiar, and discovery of peace amidst the active.