Stuart Bowditch Podcasts

As part of the Constable Ambisonic project I want to understand how we perceive the landscape, and what did Constable and his contemporaries bring to our understanding of the natural world, and who else has contributed to the language used and ideals we hold in regard to perception of landscape. Here I talk to artist and printmaker David Stone at the Cuckoo Farm Print Workshop, Colchester. We disc...

This recording has come about by my activities on the Constable Ambisonic project, where I'll be making ambisonic sound recordings of 20 locations of paintings by John Constable. https://www.constableambisonic.co.uk/ As I explore and reacquaint myself with 'Constable Country' I have been recording in a variety of locations in and around the Dedham Vale. This recording was made on a footpath leadin...

I was in Bournemouth on an assignment but arrived early to have a mooch about the town. I hadn't visited since 1999 and that was under the cover of darkness as we were going raving at an all nighter, although I forget which club it was we went to. What I do remember is that it was the first time I heard the Ferry Corsten remix of William Orbit's version of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. Anywa...

Myself and good friend Matt Shenton went on a well overdue trudge around the edge of Old Hall Marshes near Tollesbury. It's an RSPB site, so we were looking forward to hearing, seeing, recording, some birds, but as the car park is closed on weekends (doh!) we had a extra mile or so walk to get to the site. it was windy and fresh, but with a hint of warmth. Was good to take in heady lung fulls of m...

To follow up on my recording of the Nightingales at Middlewick from last year (yes, I know it takes me a long time to do things) I wanted to record the skylarks as there are several nesting pairs on the site. Frazer Merrick (artist and runner) commented that he'd just heard them on Middlewick and Michael Padmore (from the 'Save Middlewick' campaign) tipped me off of some more locations. So I got u...

In preparation for my upcoming project Constable Ambisonic (more on that soon), I was in Manningtree Station car park for 5am to meet my friend photographer Simon Rogers. It was damp but mild and we walked the paths of the Stour Valley as far as Flatford and back, simply to get back in to the swing of being up early, in the field, listening and recording. In this, the third recording of the mornin...

It had been a while since I'd done any recording so it was great to get up early and head out to one of my favourite spots, Arger Fen. I made two recordings, this one in the woods, and another in more open scrubland. Since it was before dawn there was plenty of bird action including tawny owl, pheasant, song thrush, robin, blackbird, mistle thrush, wren, chaffinch, crow, coal tit, dunnock and gree...

On the 19th September 2013 I had a phone call from a friend who only phones when he needs something. He's cool so usually it's a pretty good shout. He was in a spot of bother and needed a package full of art taken to a gallery for him as the package sent via courier had gone missing. Only problem was that it needed to be there tomorrow, and the gallery was in Århus, Denmark. So, with only 3 hours...

Whilst collecting sounds for my Modern Tendring Vernacular project in February 2024 I went to record the tide bell at Harwich, which I had never seen or heard before. There was a strong wind and rain but I'd timed the tide right to capture the bell, and was meeting a chap called Geoff soon, so only had one shot at recording it.

Between 2008 and 2010 I lived in Hackney and on a cold Wednesday morning I went for a walk down Ridley Road Market in Dalston. I remember there being lots of meat, piles of pigs trotters and some strange vegetables. I loved the mixture of cultures, food, voices, accents, and music, but not so much the intensity of some of the smells. I recorded this whilst walking along so it's not a static record...

In the years around 2013 I would go on regular walks with my good friend and artist Alan Hockett, exploring the darker, more mysterious corners of Essex. On this particular day we walked from Burnham-on-Crouch, along the sea wall, to the North Sea (previously called The German Ocean). Not long after setting of we came across a gorgeous but old crab that was being used to lift a small yacht out of...

During a research and development trip for the project Fabric: Silk Road (with Ruth Philo) I recorded two women working with silk on a large hand operated loom at the Museum of Silk Manufacture in Nanjing, China. Although I couldn't understand their commentary it was fascinating to watch them work together on this complicated and beautiful machine. Ruth continues the project which you can follow a...

By a strange set of circumstances I found my self sitting, quite near to the village lock-up and stocks, outside Canewdon Church on a sunny Sunday morning. The bells were ringing for quite some time but just as I was relaxing in to reverie, a couple of things happened. A light aircraft was passing over head, and whilst that's nothing new in that area, the drone of the aircraft slightly descended t...

Over a number of years my good friend Graham and I took regular road trips out to very uncool places, for a change of scenery, to chew the fat, to talk crap and experience underwhelming facets of life. The story of this trip is fraught with danger but one of the highlights of our trip was playing Mr G's bingo in Leysdown-on-Sea on the Isle of Sheppey. Unfortunately we didn't win the packet of fish...

Whilst staying with some friends in their forest retreat in Gelse, Hungary, a clap of thunder woke me up at around 5am so I recorded the storm pass over. The recorder (Sony D100) was placed just inside my door that connected to the outside terrace area.

I was on my way back from my Uncle's surprise 80th birthday party and I took a detour around the Circle Line on the London Underground, just for fun. I spent a couple of hours sitting on different platforms listening, absorbing, thinking.

In 2007 in was collecting sounds for a sound installation (called AWSoM) I was making with artist Damien Robinson for the Sutton-with-Shopland Music Festival. On Tabor Farm, where the music festival was to be held, is Sutton Hall Railway, a narrow gauge railway run by enthusiasts. This is a recording of my ride on one of the trains pulled by a steam locomotive.

In early May 2024 I went on a public walk around Middlewick Ranges as part of Jane's Walk Colchester 2024. The overriding theme of the walk was to raise awareness of the flora, fauna and diversity of habitats in this area, which is currently under threat of sale by the MoD and subsequent development of housing. So to aid the campaign of the good folk at Save The Middlewick Ranges, I got up early t...

In 2009 I joined my friend, artist and activist Nicola Field on a March for Palestine through the streets of London to the Israeli embassy. Occupation persists and grows. Marches persist and grow. Hope persists and grows. Ceasefire now! X

In 2016 I was recording a variety of locations for the Essex Record Office Sound and Video Archive 'You Are Hear' project https://www.essexsounds.org.uk . One of the threads of interest were 'Quiet Places' so I headed out to the sea wall at Paglesham, near the final resting place of The Beagle (Darwin's Ship), next to the abandoned oyster beds, overlooking Potton Island across the River Roach. As...

A week before lockdown came in to force in the UK I recorded an interview with artist Terry Flower for the series of podcasts I did for Visit Stour Valley (available on Soundcloud and other platforms). He directed me to a lovely spot across the fields in some woods beside Belchamp Brook. I sat there for half an hour soaking up the atmosphere and contemplating the impending doom. There is plenty of...

I put a call out for sounds, or suggestions of sound, from the borough of Tendring in Essex. Geoff, a volunteer at the High Lighthouse in Harwich, agreed to let me inside to make some recordings. I meet him on a very blustery and rainy day and he kindly let me spend some time alone in the building to capture the sound of the lively weather filtering through the building. The only internal sound yo...

During a trip to India in January 2010 to stay with my housemates uncle in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, I visited the Ashram in Sabarmati, one of several ashram's that Gandhi stayed at between 1917 and 1933. www.gandhiashramsabarmati.org/en/

It had been several years since I was on Wallasea Island, so I was pleased to be back in one of my old haunts. I went with a very good friend that I was visiting over the festive period and we decided to go and watch the sunrise over Foulness Island, which is itself somewhere I have recorded and made work. https://essexmeme.fandom.com/wiki/Essexmeme_Wiki We arrived just as the gate to the RSPB res...

I am pleased to be working with artist and musician Matt Shenton on his project Listening To The Landscape, that has been funded by a Arts Council England 'Develop Your Creative Practice' grant. For our first session together we spent quite some time talking about equipment and techniques for recording sound in the field, before venturing out into the wilds of the Shotley Peninsular to find a spot...