9.15 am. Back to it. The season of marking begins in earnest: essays, dissertations, and research projects have to be bagged and dispatched this week, so that, next week, I can devote my attention solely to the BA and MA fine artists as they finalise their show. This is the best time of the year: the harvest after the sowing. On with marking essays from Dr Pierse’s module on aspects of British art:

In the background, I remastered the recording, made on Tuesday at the School of Art, of Liz modelling the paper. The ambient recording, captured on an iPad placed at a distance from the event, wasn’t appropriate. Too remote. The handheld recording, on the other hand, places the ear at the point of action — as though inside the paper as it was being ripped and crushed. Does the recording sound like paper being torn and crumpled? Yes. In part, because I know what the sound represents. (I was present.) But aural content can evoke things that it is not: waves, static electricity, and foil — associations that were summoned when we were recording the performance:

I’ve not marked a first-year essay in years. It came as a bit of a shock. Secondary schools don’t prepare the students for the challenge of constructing a substantiated arc of argument. I doubt that renaming them all academies will help in this or any other respect. Beyond saving money, demoralising teachers, and exhausting pupils, this country has a no philosophy of teaching.

I decided to reinstate my Sony Net MD Walkman MZ-N910 recorder, which I purchased in the 2002. This mini-disc player is one of the most compact, finest sounding, sexiest digital recorders ever made. The quality of an iPod pales in comparison. In my opinion, this period in Sony’s production was the high watermark of digital hardware design. The device, while digital, is very physical. It feels engineered. The only drawback is that Sony didn’t allow files to be transferred to and from the device and a computer other than in its propriety format, which cannot be either converted to standard codecs or edited. (Nor was the device ever compatible with a Mac.) An analogue line-level connection is the only alternative:

After lunch, further essaying. I’ve read some promising and encouraging responses. So, I ended the working day on a high.