antnest

— a place near Frankfurt (Main)
Practice • SIW • Theory

2016 — Till Bovermann

When encountering an environment that is unknown to me, I am biased. Over time, I replace my biased conception with a more detailed picture.

The following is a description on how a place I encountered for the first time in July 2016 near Frankfurt (Main) slowly revealed itself to me, shifting from a relaxing place to a place with lots of potential for sonic interventions.

When I first came to this meadow, I chose to rest here because it had a raised hide-out from which I could overlook the whole area. I arrived from the near forest and a sunny place such as the meadow seemed to be inviting for a rest. I climbed up, sat down, started to record the surrounding with my audio recorder and opened a book about ants that I brought to read.

People passed by, not taking notice of me. Through their movements, I learned that there are several paths within the meadow, of which some reach through the near forest. I further gathered that there were about six apple trees on my left, whereas I counted only two on my right side.

After some time, I climbed down (leaving the recorder on the hide-out), put my blanket to the grass and continued reading. People passed by and, now that I was laying still at a visible place, some of them approached me and asked if I feel all right or would need help.1

I collected my recorder and explored the two solitary trees on the lower end of the meadow with my camera.

In one of the trees, which appeared to be dead since a long time, I encountered an ants nest, built into a large cavity of its trunk. The ants were very active, occasionally making crackling sounds when pieces of straw, earthworms or their larvae fell to the ground in front of the tree, often together with their carriers.

All this action was accompanied by a blue sky sprinkled with small clouds, which caused swift changes between sunny and overcast light. The sound of wind rustling in the surrounding trees, chirping birds and, prominently, the noises of starting and landing air planes at near Frankfurt airport.

  1. Apparently, there was an incident a few days back where someone found a fainted person next to a creek in the woods. She performed first aid and it eventually turned out good. ↩︎

Affiliation:
This text is based on a fragment written around the (sonic) wild code field lab in Kilpisjärvi (2015) and the micro-residency Sonic Wild{er}ness at Hai Art in Hailuoto (2016).