bells and chimes thoughts

World Trade Centre at Beurs

Lately I caught a cold. I cough at night and don't sleep too well. The one good thing that came with it however was the strange dreams I've been having. Last night I was in a alternate dimension where the only life-forms are sentient buildings. These were houses and high-rise apartments that were conscious and could communicate with each other. They communicate through ringing metal bells. They sound like church bells. Every building also has a main bell that is hung in front of the entrance, it's the biggest bell and it's shaped like a silver nose. These buildings (mostly yellow in colour) are really chatty and the bells never stop ringing in the village. Ringing bells 24/7. The buildings don't ever sleep because they are buildings. It's a continuous long conversation.

I woke up in a cold sweat at 3 am. It wasn't scary, the imagery was just too cool. This other time last year I was walking outside in Rotterdam on a windy winter night and I thought of an act of terrorism where we could hang wind-chimes up on trees and lamp-posts before the winds come. The metallic chirps that never go away is going to drive all pedestrians insane. Wind-chime city 24/7, this is Batman villain stuff. Regular villains rob banks, but super-villains are fond of messing with your head with urban theatrics that are elaborate and symbolic. Last week I've read the Amazing Spider-Man event-arc Spider Island, where every person in the entire island of Manhattan was turned into a giant spider, and Spidey had to save everyone. That kind of scheme really only makes sense in cities. Take any super-villain mastermind out of cities and (s)he is a fish out of water.

Disregarding the villainy, wind-chimes can be my friends, I like to understand that they give the winds a difference voice. It's refreshing to hear the winds sing small tunes rather than the usual blatant howling or the uncalled-for whispering of your name (wait wait i'm not psycho i swear that's supposed to be funny in its melodrama!). Anyways if the city winds are to drive anyone insane they would do so with or without chimes.

Stadhuis

Rotterdam city centre has several bell towers that ring loud without any winds. I can think of 3 main sets right now. There are bells at the Stadhuis (they play the Westminster chimes which I love), and there are bells at the Laurenskerk. There are bells at the World Trade Centre, when they ring they ring for a long time and their sounds have my favourite echo texture. When all these bell towers ring at the same time they speak to each other in a language only buildings know. I was in Taipei in the summer and in that city there's no tradition of the hourly striking bell tower, but the city has a lot of constructions going on, and wherever there's a construction site there is a constant metallic something-hitting-against-something-else. Gong, gong. It's also a language only buildings know, but maybe in a very different dialect.

Eiland van Briennenoord

This specific spot in the picture has an unique soundscape so outstanding that the sounds alone merit a visit. The A16 highway traffic and the howling underbridge-winds concoct a raw and hard-coming rumbling. The waves from the Maas break on the rivershore rocks and make for constant water splashes. When these sound sources layer up, if you close your eyes and retreat into an audio reality, it is not difficult to imagine a rainstorm taking place around you. This is a storm point, even on a fairly sunny day.

But then, if you're here at the right time, you will also notice the presence of a lively chirping from your local bird-friends, hanging around in the trees on your sides. This lightness dresses up the heavies, and together they satisfy both ends of a tonal spectrum. There is a deep moving force which overwhelms, but there is also this reminder of immediate lives that sing regardless. Buddy, it's like the truth of the universe or something. 

It may be difficult to believe that a soundscape as aesthetically complete as this one wasn't designed specifically to be so. Sometimes recorded music isn't even this good.  I don't know if they took these sounds into consideration when they built a concrete bridge over an island in the middle of the river. On one hand I would like to live in a world where people have the sense to intentionally create spectacular spaces like these. On the other hand I would also like to live in a world where spaces like these can come to be on their own.

Where is this specific space anyways? Remember in the previous post where I saw some trees in the river after I've crossed the bridge? I managed to walk to where the trees were. It turned out to be an island in the middle of the Nieuwe Maas called Eiland van Briennenoord. I guess I've seen it on the map, but I never expected it to surprise me in so many ways. I guess that's the definition of a surprise.

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There's something cinematic about tall, grey concrete structures. Especially when you walk under them and realize how small you are in comparison.  You can see this place in a post-apocalyptic movie as a spot where future nomads would settle for a week. There's a lot of graffiti here which gives it an urban personality, even when it's a little far out from the city centre.

For more current information, I have heard about a presence of present-day urban nomads, namely the homeless folks that come here at night and hang around. Some might feel uncomfortable about that and wouldn't want to be here after a certain time. How you choose to feel about the situation and what you decide to do about it is an issue you have to resolve internally. According to numbers from 2006, there are 4000 homeless people in Rotterdam, and this was before the economic recession. I don't usually think about it much lest it keeps me awake at night, while I lay in my bed, under a roof. Anyways what matters is what needs to be done to help them and who is willing to contribute to these efforts. How I feel about it personally is of minor causal significance here except that it is difficult for me to summarise the issue in any short sentence. Here's more details on the Rotterdam government's homeless policies.

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A discussion can be had about whether managed green spaces like this in an urban setting count as "nature". In my preferred definition, anything that people do and build is "natural", as people came to be and act they way they do "naturally" (i.e. we came from cave people to this urban civilization without any artificial third party involvement). As such, a man-made park is a piece of "nature" but then maybe so is a parking lot. There are plants and animals that are active in both environments.

Many plants and animals are active on the island. I've never gotten into identifying them but maybe I should. There are several different kinds of birds here, for instance, and it would be fun to know what species they are. But it is also fun to just look and listen. I think the walking ones are pheasants.

Starting every May and until sometime in the winter, they also place grote grazers on the island, namely Scottish Highland Cows. They are really chill (as long as you don't get too close or irritate them) (anyone who's chill is probably like that). You may find them hanging around the woods or strolling on the footpaths or taking a dip in the ponds. They have younger calves too. In my experience it is difficult to find a person who doesn't like these cows.

People also come to the island for angling. I feel neutral about angling. I eat fish. I don't eat cows. But hey this isn't chiefly a blogpost on how I manage my compassion and how that affects my life choices, maybe I'll stop now. I can write about these topics elsewhere like in these motivation letters I'm sending out 

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We may identify the island's two specific connections to Rotterdam's urbanity, one historic and one visual. The historic one: in the 60s, Rotterdam built the first metro system in the Netherlands, with a metro line that went from Centraal Station to Zuidplein. After the Maastunnel, a second tunnel under the Maas had to be built for this metro, and most of that tunnel was built on the island before being lowered into the bottom of the river. It was 2 km of solid engineering feats, very much in character with this city. Some traces of the construction process are still left on the island.

The visual one doesn't need much explanation. Initially I planned to stand on the Van Briennenoordbrug to find a sweetspot for viewing the city's skyline. I didn't find it on the bridge but I have found it on the island that the bridge is named after. Come and see for yourself. The city looks pretty good from here.

A line of conclusion? I'm really busy now but hopefully as the summer hits I'll have time to come back here more often. City-dwellers like to talk about the search for an island of composure and retreat, in the sometime-stifling anxiety of urban life. People usually mean that metaphorically but this is literally that kind of island. Lately I've been feeling like I can use some composure and retreat but oh look we're back to my problems again.

Elevator Pitch

I've found a spot to listen to elevators. I was here for 20 minutes or so, it's kind of hypnotic.

I've never really gotten into listening to urban noises but I figured I probably should. I like sounds and I like the juxtaposition of foreground and background. Foregrounds and backgrounds are relative ideas, always subjective and sometimes arbitrary. But it's pretty lame to take them for granted---what sound is a background noise and what makes it so? I want to try to actively listen and consciously decide on what sounds should come forth to occupy my attention. I can't do that ALL the time obviously because that would drive me insane, but I want to start doing it once in a while and seek out soundscapes that I don't usually notice.

I think a good listening spot needs to meet two criteria. Firstly, you should be in a position where you won't disturb the sound source. Following this, you should probably also not be in a place where you would directly creep people out because then they would alter the soundscape by loudly saying things like hey what the hell are you doing here man get out of my garden. This relates to the second criteria: you should be in a position where people won't disturb you. Thirdly, I prefer a place with the acoustics for mad reverb but I guess this one is optional.

This elevator spot meets all criteria and more. It's on the highest(8th) level of a parking garage, on top of the HEMA in Beursplein. It's called Q-Park. I was here on a Friday evening and there were no cars parked on this top level at the time, so the elevators never came up to this floor. I think most people don't like to park high if they can park low, and at a time where there're not many cars in town they can park pretty low. The way it worked out is that there were still cars coming in and out the lower levels, and on Fridays the HEMA stays opened until 9 o'clock, so there is a pretty big time-window in which the elevators are constantly in use but no one who uses it would come to where this spot is. It makes for an ideal listening set-up. Also the reverb is siiick.

My priority is not in recording so the footage above is pretty rudimentary but I just wanted a sample to share. There are several components to the sound here: that 2-step-ringing when the elevators reaches a floor, the motors working, the sound of a metallic scrapping, and of course the sound of people stepping in and out of elevators*. The two elevators both produce these sounds upon triggering and sometimes they harmonize, with every sound travelling up the shaft. Aside from the elevators, there are also secondary sounds from the streets and the city outside. They are dimmer, but if an ambulance on sirens rushes by or something it also plays a prominent part. When I was there it was raining pretty hard and this contributed to the general mooding too.

This soundscape is actually aesthetically pleasing, and if I brought a chair and a book I could potentially spend a long time here. But also in terms of meanings, I like the idea that these sounds are each initiated by people interacting with the elevator, with the building, and although they don't notice it, it is as if they are playing the building as a grand musical instrument. My listening to this live performance and their not being aware of my presence is in itself a kind of unilateral relationship. I have made it pretty clear that I am very fond of these sounds, and I don't even know any of these people. Nevertheless the setting provides a system by which anybody can participate to produce something that I, in a listener's position, can enjoy. And this is a system that I have found, the elevators were probably not designed with this purpose in mind, but maybe they should be. If buildings were designed to receive, remix, direct and present sounds, they can potentially generate a lot of unique musical experiences and social practices. I hope to find more spots for these sonic observations in Rotterdam. The quick idea is checking out other multi-layered parking garages and their elevator spaces.

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*the thought that there's some dude listening to you walking in and out of an elevator is probably very creepy in itself, not to mention that you might have also had a conversation with a friend in the elevator or something. But if I did park my car and were just waiting for my elevator in that space, I could've heard you anyway. Although the enclosed elevator gives the appearance of private space, it is not always designed to keep your sounds private and doesn't claim to do so. If someone overheard your conversation in public, is it just as creepy? Maybe. It's a pretty grey area. These considerations again remind us to be aware of what we expect spaces to do, what they actually do, and how we can always give it some extra thoughts when we use any space to do anything.

and elevators are already a little creepy. Have you seen that film?