Lost in Doi Saket - a sound map

I've never been a driver and have a hopeless sense of direction, so deciding to rent a scooter for my month in Doi Saket was always going to be risky. Nor did things start well at the rental place. Before I had even managed to ride a metre with my feet off the ground the owner had declared me ready to go and pushed me out the door. Almost immediately I was lost and so began my 600 kilometre recording tour of the region. At its heart my soundmap is about the process of weaving an emotional landscape from a physical spaces. It explores the way fragile and fleeting moments like a teen listening to love songs on the shores of a lake, or a joyful burst of backyard dancing slowly sink into an area, shaping it in the same slow way that walking along a similar route every day will eventually create a path. Lost in Doi Saket is about the different ways people leave a mark on the places they inhabit and visit. The way a community wears the land around them, and the way this process changes them too. The piece isn't intended as an collection of observations, it isn't simply about things I heard or saw, it is also about the things I did here -- the different ways I tried to explore, understand, participate and listen to Doi Saket. It's about the little things like struggling to buy cigarettes, and big things like realising I was very ignorant about Thailand. It's about the beautiful, haphazard and confusing process of getting to know and like new people, and new places and catching yourself totally lost in a moment. It is a record of the tiny ways I shaped Doi Saket during my time here, and the far bigger mark my visit left on me.

Kate Carr, Doi Saket, Thailand.

Thanks to: Helen Michaelsen, Pisithpong Siraphisut, Rees Archibald, Tim Plaisted and Tanya Serisier.

This artwork was made possible by the Compeung Residency Grant Program.