Deep Listening is listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear - Pauline Oliveros

Field recording is about listening in the outside world - the field. But what if the field was listening to us?

Field Recordings comments on the untargeted nature of pesticides, the consequential disruption this causes to honey bees, and the polarised mediatic conversations surrounding pesticide use within the UK. The project uses the leaky and uncontrollable nature of sound as a primary medium, to reflect on the similarly leaky nature of pesticides in the environment. Drawing on Pauline Oliveros’s principles of “deep listening”, Field Recordings explores methods to become mindful of otherwise invisible or ignored violence connected to widespread pesticide use. By changing the lens through which we view pesticides from our individual human perspective towards a more than human perspective—that of ‘the Field’—the project subverts the notion of field recording, to dismantle the false dichotomy between toxic and natural, food security and environmental sustainability, agriculture and wild.

Pesticides have become a highly contentious topic in the media, with the debate for and against their use becoming increasingly polarised and emotive. Neonicotinoids—a pesticide group that targets insects' central nervous systems—have centred in recent mediatic debates due to their harmful effects on pollinators, particularly bees. Bees have highly sophisticated modes of communicating. Through dance language, pheromones and vibrations, honey bees communicate the direction, distance and quality of a food source; mark the entrance to the hive; indicate the presence of a queen and signal alarms in response to a threat. Toxins from neonicotinoids disrupt this complex exchange of information in the hive by binding to receptors in the bee's nervous system, in turn changing their behaviour and disabling their intricate communication system.

In 2018, Europe implemented a ban on neonicotinoid-based pesticides due to their high toxicity to bees. However, since this ban, DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, UK) has authorised the emergency use of neonicotinoid pesticides for sugar beet farming in Norfolk and Suffolk, making these fields some of the last in Europe to still experience regular exposure to neonicotinoids. Since these controversial authorisations, articles have been published covering the anger and despair of environmental activists as well as the relief of sugar beet farmers, whose livelihood depends on the success of these crops. ‘The Field’, once viewed as a productive, rich and abundant landscape has (once again) been transformed into a politically and environmentally charged debate.

This project will recognise ‘the Field’ as a highly contested site within contemporary environmental discussions, exploring the current narratives surrounding pesticides and the broader debate of their use within the fields of Norfolk. It will consider the perspective of ‘the Field’ by asking the question: what would ‘the Field’ hear if it was listening to us, and our media-driven debates?

Field Recordings depicts a misty sugar beet field in Wissington, Norfolk. Europe's largest sugar refinery, Wissington Sugar Factory, looms in the background, hidden by fog. An argument breaks out across the field - words uttered on one side and counteracted on the other. The argument slowly builds, the voices become more angry and emotive and as it continues it appears that the same words are used on each side. The words were selected by analysing 15 news articles covering the story of the authorisation of neonicotinoids in UK sugar beet farming and are the 20 most common words used in the articles to argue both for and against pesticides. The piece uses the unbiased perspective of ‘the Field’ to comment on the irony of the media's increasing polarisation surrounding pesticides and yet the similarity of words and language used on each side of the debate.