Arphield Recordings is a project documenting impromptu arphid sound performances produced by people scanning their oysters cards in the daily routine of access control to the london tube stations. The methodology of field recordings – documentation of site-specific soundscapes through audio recording equipment – is in this case focused on the sampling of sounds produced by the use of arphid (rfid) technology (cards and readers) complemented by digital processing involving sampling and synthesis from the source, speculating on the ad infinitum convergence of arphid tags and readers into an endless symphony of sound surveillance and compliance.

The first arphield recordings –documenting the impromptu sound performance of people moving through the London tube access control gates were done in Brixton, Kings Cross and Caledonian Road tube stations during march 2006 for the TAGGED one day event at SPACE Media Arts (NodeLondon March 2006), when cds with the tracks and locational tags were distributed.

The project remains open to contributions. One way of doing this is downloading the arphield recordings and visiting the station gates with the sounds on a portable music player to experience a mix of live and prerecorded oyster beeps.

Another way of participating is by contributing arphield recordings from a tube station access control gate. You can do this by opening an odeo.com account and uploading your recordings , tagging them as arphieldRecording followed by the number unique to your oyster card (as in arphieldRecordings-0503266130-03)

The next arphid mob will happen at the Stockwell tube station, South London. Join us for an impromptu sound jam/memorial using our oyster cards, on Portugal day,the 10th of June 2006 at 14pm. Download the arphield Recordings podcast from  http://odeo.com/channel/85358 and bring the sounds on a portable music player.

Part of Welcome Goodbye Adeus Obrigada, a Portuguese festival of theatre and visual arts at the Blue Elephant Theatre and the Little Portugal.

 http://welcomegoodbye.blogspot.com/