Photography as Field Recording

A Sound Installation by COB (1994) & Giovanni Ambrosio

Composed for the finissage of the exhibition Ejecta-1 at Pu-téca Tramandars (September 2024), Photography as Field Recording is a site-specific sound piece by COB, developed from a text by Giovanni Ambrosio.

Rather than accompanying the images, the piece introduces a discursive layer within the installation—a sound essay that repositions documentary photography within the logic of musical field recording. The idea, already discussed during the post-performance talk following Signal from Noise in the Casamale neighbourhood (July 2024), is simple yet radical:

What if we approached photography as we do field recording in sound—going out into the terrain to document, capture, and process fragments of a place’s presence?

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Photography as a Sonic Act of Documentation

This composition acts not as a soundtrack, but as a critical trace within the installation. It reflects an ongoing research question:

Can documentary photography function like field recording—gathering environmental, social, and emotional frequencies from the ground?

Photography as Field Recording presents a layered voice, meditating on ruins, archives, listening, and observation. It belongs to the broader ecosystem of works exhibited in Ejecta-1 and documented in the upcoming Ejecta catalogue, which compiles traces, archives, sounds, images, impulses, fragments, and ruins drawn from Giovanni Ambrosio’s performative actions throughout 2024.

Credits

• Concept & Text: Giovanni Ambrosio

• Sound Composition & Voice: COB (1994)

• Presented during: Ejecta-1 finissage, Pu-téca Tramandars, Somma Vesuviana,, September 2024