Hear A Pin Drop Here

Thanks to Yoko Ishiguro for her live translation, Forest Fringe for inviting me to TPAM, British Council for funding the visit, and staff at Steep Slope Studio and BankART Studio NYK for all their help over the week.

110 locations! Every street walked. Many pins lost forever.

I finished at just after 5pm today, by walking towards World Porters along the Kishamichi Promenade. I found three great locations on that, due to the wooden boards:

The main problem today was the wind. It was bitterly cold, and very strong, knocking over shop signs, potted plants, and at one point, even my video camera on its tripod. I had to turn against the wind whenever I dropped a pin, partly so I could have a better chance of hearing it, and partly so that the pin didn’t blow away!

It was raining today, which usually affects this project: water on the pavement stops the pins from jumping back up and resonating. However, I did find 5 extra locations today, bringing the total up to 75.

I’ve also had my first three contributions from visitors added to the map. Their locations look like this:

and mine look like this:

When I was in the studio I decided to test the difference between dropping a pin point first, and dropping it parallel to the ground. I dropped 25 of each onto a central point and marked the locations they bounced to. The average distance a ‘parallel’ pin travelled was 14.2cm, whereas the average distance a ‘point-first’ pin travelled was 30.3cm. This means that a pin dropped point-first will be flying back up through the air for longer, which gives you more chance of hearing it resonate before it is deadened by the second contact with the floor.

Only 6 extra locations today (bringing the grand total to 70) because I had to spend my time making this:

I mainly explored the area around Zou-no-hana Park: it was very quiet, as I expected, but I couldn’t hear a pin drop because the floor surface was very rough. I am guessing that it dissipates the impact more than a smooth surface does, and so less energy is transferred as sound. However, it did work on those same paving stones in one corner of the park, near a sign, and I wonder if that was to do with the sign reflecting the sound?

Well that was exhausting! I’ve been walking for 6 hours around the parts of the city that sit at the edges of my map. The plan is that the areas closest to BankART Studio should be easier for other people to survey when they pick up my map, so I thought I would cover the distant locations first. I mis-counted the blocks when walking in the Isezaki shopping area (lots of small streets) and have therefore included a couple of points outside the map. I also got barked at by a tiny ferocious dog wearing a jumper.

疲れたー！マップの端のほうのエリアを6時間も歩き回った。BankART付近は参加者も回りやすいだろうから、離れた場所を先に調べることに決めた。小さな路地が多い伊勢佐木町では道を数え間違えて、マップ外のエリアも調べることに。途中、セーターを着た小さくて凶暴な犬に吠えられてしまった。

I now have 64 locations, but I’m afraid I have lost count of how many pins I’ve lost. I’ve been using my jacket cuff as a pin cushion whilst walking, holding about 4 pins at a time, and I’ve had to re-stock that at least 5 times today.

I began sketching a 2m version of my map onto a white wall in the BankART Studio today, in anticipation of publicly annotating it with my locations. For the time being, they are recorded on this map, with the area covered shaded in pencil. I’m up to a total of 25 locations so far, with a total of 10 pins lost….

I was in a much more open space today, with ferry terminals and parks, which explains the high hit rate. Here are my locations for today:

This is the area I covered in one hour this afternoon. It was limited by the fact that I lost all four of the pins that I took out with me. Note to self: be less optimistic tomorrow, and take a box of pins.

You might notice that there are two dots outside of the map. That’s because I mis-read my own map earlier and thought I had to go around the back of my hotel. I’ve included the photos anyway, as there is a lovely flowerbed in the first one! So seven locations for an hour on day one, all four pins missing: