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‘FUMP HULDER’ BY MARTYN RILEY
Or ‘Essence of the hidden’ (translation from the late 18th century Devonshire dialect)
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FUMP HULDER is a document of several days spent exploring the acoustic ecology, landscape, and geology of Permian Period Dartmoor, formed some 280 million years ago.
As well as (re)opening my deep-listening practice with this short study, mediated via sound and the environment; textural and elemental, it also reasserted the visual beauty without the constant reminder of humanity and its footprint.
Employing specialised microphones, hydrophone, contact, geophone, seismic, I located and recorded the sound hidden and unavailable the human ear. The pure sounds of flowing water beneath the surface tension, the crack and lurching of different trees, the elements on rusty barbed fences and farm gates. But not ignoring the often ignored such as the throbbing rumble of the wind canopy within huge forests and the change in acoustics and sound of areas completely hidden by morning fog.
The few film pictures taken are all closely connected to the sound experience and in particular, recordings made, so became a psycho-geographic pairing.
Eventually, after (re)tuning my hearing, I imagined to be in a literal ‘bowl’ of sound, almost liquified. Even amongst the veritable silence and the gravitational pull of the granite landscape, sounds and vibrations could be monitored from huge distances by the listener.
All recordings and photography from January 202
Manipulated Nagra 1 minute tape loop of barbed wire recorded with Jrf contact mic with guitar
48-minute sound piece of Dartmoor Field Recordings on Revox A77 Mk1
Recorded on Zoom F6/H6, Jrf hydrophone/contact mics, LOM Geophone/Usi Pro mics
Silver gelatine prints made on fibre-based paper.
Handprinted by Katrina Stamatopoulos
with special thanks to Kevin O’Neil in the process
Shot on Nikon F2
