(London) Aside from tourists, few still attach much importance to the iconic red telephone boxes in London. Most don’t work anymore, so when Stuart Fowkes finds one still working, he can’t resist recording its ringtone.
This particular sound will enrich his collection of missing sounds that he intends to preserve as part of a project he has called “Obsolete Sounds”.
Stuart Fowkes grabs his little microphone and springs into action. “I’ve always been curious about sounds,” he explains.
“New sounds are emerging faster than ever before in history, but they also change and disappear faster than before,” he says.
Over the past five years, he has collected and remixed more than 5,000 sounds from 100 countries on his “Cities and Memory” site. All are being archived by the British Library.
For his new project, he wants to collect noises that are “almost forgotten”, those that he says have “the greatest emotional resonance”.
“What struck me was how people were moved by some of the recordings,” he explains.
“You have people who hear the sound of a Super 8 camera and they remember being in their living room in 1978 with their father showing home movies for the first time,” he adds.
The “Obsolete Sounds” project brings together more than 150 recordings collected around the world and includes mixes of these sounds by musicians and artists.
Presented as the largest collection of its kind, it includes sounds from Walkman cassette players or old video game consoles, but also the sound of steam trains or old racing cars.
Stuart Fowkes has also recorded the sound of rapidly changing surroundings, such as cracking and melting glaciers.
“Before the Industrial Revolution, our sonic environment — steeples, horse hooves, manual industry — didn’t change much for hundreds of years,” says Fowkes.
“Today, everything is changing at a ridiculous pace. Objects are only a few years old, like cell phone ringtones, when they are already out of date. »
PHOTO BEN STANSALL, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Stuart Fowkes in London Underground recording session
The sounds of the city
As he rushes into the London Underground, the sound collector gets back to work.
For him, the screeching of a train arriving at the station or the sound of doors opening and closing are absolutely nothing boring.
I have always been someone who listens to the world. As soon as I had a recorder in my hands, I started listening to the world a little differently and hearing things that people wouldn’t necessarily notice or listen to.
Stuart Fowkes
Stuart Fowkes, digital consultant, launched “Cities and Memory” in 2015 and attracted some 1,000 collaborators worldwide.
“Every morning I wake up and I have emails with sounds from completely unexpected places, like a beach in Bali or even a subway in Pyongyang,” he says.
And these field recordings are fashionable, adds the enthusiast. Artists like Björk use them in their music.
“Before it was very niche, a bit like the behavior of ‘trainspotters’ (railway enthusiasts, editor’s note), but now everyone can record correctly on their phone and it’s becoming more and more ‘mainstream’ says Fowkes.
The collector is delighted with the enthusiasm generated by his project, but would like to receive even more sounds, especially from cities in Africa.
Anyone can participate, he points out, by “just taking the phone out the window” before sharing the recording on his site.
He continues for his part to record the sounds of everyday life, a passion that accompanies him everywhere.
“As soon as we go on vacation I’m going to say (to my wife): ‘Did you hear that pedestrian crossing? I have to register it”.