The myth of the invisible figure with a microphone

Collateral Damage: Salomé Voegelin
The Wire, May 2014
A new generation of field recordists is challenging the myth of the invisible figure with a microphone in work that celebrates presence rather than absence.


[...]Exciting field recording does not record the field but produces a plurality of fields. lt neither abandons the reality of the recorded, nor does it take it for granted, but works with it, responds to it, understands it as one imprint in the landscape made by the body of the recordist and retraced tentatively by the listener. This listener in turn generates a new imprint between the heard and the recorded, listening to the authenticity of a particular rendition rather than its source, and embracing interpretation as part of the actuality of the real. That is at least what I consider to be exciting. [...]
http://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/collateral-damage/collateral-damage_salome-voegelin