"Caged Birds" as field recoding Robin Parmar "The world is not what I think, but what I live through." – Maurice Merleau-Ponty [2005, xviii] At this symposium I am presenting the composition "Caged Birds (Augmentation)", which was originally created for 100x John: A Global Salute to John Cage in Sound and Image. This celebration for the John Cage centenary was presented by Ear to the Earth in New York City in December 2012. Since then the stereo version of the piece has been played at the Hilltown New Music Festival 2013 in Ireland and the Symposium on Acoustic Ecology 2013 at the University of Kent. For Invisible Cities / Sounding Places I have created a new four-channel diffusion that I trust you will enjoy. There are two important characteristics of my sound work that should be mentioned before I discuss this particular piece. First, my works are rooted in my daily life, which is to say that I do not generally embark on making recordings with a specific end in mind. I hear something that resonates with me and choose to transcribe the acoustic signature for later recall. Technologies of miniaturisation and digital processing enable this approach, in that I can carry a device of suitable audio fidelity with me at all times. Recording can then be effortlessly integrated with the ebb and flow of the quotidian. Second, I follow Edward S. Casey's declaration that "[t]o live is to live locally, and to know is first of all to know the places one is in" [1996, 18]. My recordings are largely of my neighbourhood, the St. Mary's parish of Corbally, Limerick City, Ireland. I am less likely to record foreign or exotic locales I might visit while travelling, although I allow serendipity to create exceptions. For this piece the source material is a dawn chorus recorded a few hundred metres from my home, in what might be termed a suburban setting, but which I prefer to call “para-urban”, since it does not partake of the topological or ecological aspects one might associate with suburbia 1 . A disused canal feeds an offshoot of the Shannon River, near a marshy lake. On various sides are single family dwellings, modest apartments, the tallest only seven storeys, and some farm buildings and livestock fields, mostly also disused. In Ireland such mixed land use, in which city and country are conjoined, is quite common. Though my composition might initially be mistaken for an "untouched" field recording, it soon becomes apparent that the avian performers have been taught a new tune. The birdsong shifts in frequency, amplitude, and timing, based on various electroacoustic processes I have applied. In part, this mimics how birds have adapted their song to changing urban environments [Pijanowski et al. 2011, 208]. The piece could be interpreted as a metaphor for such ecological concerns, though the fact that the aesthetic affects are derived from electronically-generated transformations belies any easy nostalgic interpretation. The intent is to highlight, rather than resolve, any paradox inherent in this mediated engagement with what might naively be called "nature". The title "Caged Birds" is indeed a play on John Cage, but it's also a reminder that a recording is a sound no longer at liberty. 1 The suggestion that I might use the term "exurban" is not congruent with the definition: "the region outside the suburbs of a city, consisting of residential areas that are occupied predominantly by rich commuters" [Dictionary.com]. 1 of 2