Chapter 6

Ochlophonic Study: Hong Kong (2002-2008)

John Levack Drever

Through the juxtaposition, superimposition and further manipulation of ear-level field recordings of the atmospheres and sound events garnered between 2002 and 2008, of everyday, pastime, and auspicious activities, taken from public, commercial, educational, and sacred sites of inner-city Hong Kong SAR, Ochlophonic Study: Hong Kong aims at presenting an evocation of the sheer intensity of this most vociferous of urbanplaces.

On achieving this, to some extent the work discloses Drever’s experiential making sense of Hong Kong through the prism of the vestiges of his cultural idiosyncrasies, with an intentional naive undercurrent at play in its devising, pursuing Elias Canetti aural method from his trip to Marrakesh in the mid-1950s:

I wanted sounds to affect me as much as lay in their power, unmitigated by deficient and artificial knowledge on my part.
Elias Canetti, The Voices of Marrakesh (2012: 17)

The Ochlophonic Study is an ongoing research trajectory into the auditory culture of crowds, the crowded soundscape, and the feeling of being crowded.