Do my morals and values align with the industry?
I believe that the sonic industry of environmental field recording is incredibly unethical and unsustainable. In my dissertation ‘proposing a methodology to collaborate with the more-than-human through environmental field recording’ I argued that field recording is anthropocentric, egocentric, unsustainable and unethical to its core. These fields roots were born off the back of colonialistic and extractive mentalities which seek to separate humans from the more-than-human world.
At the beginning of my 3rd year, I asked myself the question – do I want to align myself with the name ‘field recordists’ – are my values and ethics reflected in this practice – if not how to I make it so that my morals and understandings of sustainability and ethical practice are included within this field. From these questions I set out to write my dissertation on the separation between the human and more-than- human, focusing on how environmental field recordists involve themselves consciously or unconsciously within this unsustainable cycle.
I looked into how the devices we used to enable us to record impact and destroy the very subject matters we are so eager to ‘capture’. The fact that our industry is based off of consumeristic mindsets of having the lates gadget toy or microphone dose not in any sense align with what I believe in. From this I started to look into alternative ways of recording sonically. As a person who follows paganism, I looked to the folkloric traditions within the belief system I adhere to. I proposed singing, songs and drawing as alternative ways to record and document.
To go against my industry’s norms, I explained that we don’t need to use this unsustainable equipment in order to record. Most of our tools end up in landfill and exported back to the countries in which they were created following a cradle-to-grave framework. I suggested using the recently developed cradle-to-cradle framework instead that is ecologically focused and reuses all parts of the already made gadgets.
Not only does this industry harm the ‘environment’ with the devices we make but the mentalities towards the more-than-human. It is a field based on a deep rooted extractivism that is unconsensual and unethical. In my dissertation I looked to the language that we use within the field and point out how words like nonhuman, take, capture, mine, own and found all deduct and exploit the more-than-human. I proposed we used an alternative dictionary that enables us to communicate ethically and sustainably with our more-than-human collaborators. Now that I am leaving university and at some point looking to join the industry, I will make it adhere to my ethics and my morals. For me this means becoming a sustainable practitioner. My work will be ecologically focused and use alternative methods that do not exploit the more-than-human. This will mean using my own method for approaching field recording through the use of different tools, actions and mentalities. This will also mean using different forms of sharing