Family Album by Beulah Kruger

This sound piece consists of collected recordings I made during the time of my parents’ divorce.
I specifically curated the first sound piece (Driving to my ballet class: Part 1) to depict a kind of narrative or sequence that describes a car ride. At first it opens with driving sounds and then brings voices in as all the recordings I made of family fights falls into each other. The voices gets louder and they seem to stay loud for an eternity. Finally, it slows down again, ending with a sigh and the driving sound of the car.
I chose the narrative of the car drive because most of the violent and impactful memories of that time were when we were driving somewhere. The car is figuratively and literally a confined space out of which one cannot escape. The audio of the car and the sighing/crying is also an actual recording of a drive to my ballet class with my mother.
The second piece (The Ghost: Part 2) was the exported single track that I made in the first piece, edited to the point where it becomes an auric kind of sonic piece. Here I was creating not only the ‘ghost’ of the first track but describing the ghost of the past – the feeling of being haunted.
I used the photo in the album cover because it depicts the kitchen where most of these fights were recorded (you can hear the noises of kitchen utensils etc. in the background). It also seems like a wholesome family photo, but once you play the sound pieces, the image becomes haunted.
Revisiting the recordings for the first time was part of this piece, as it still haunts me – it actualizes my memories and resituates me within the space of the past. This is the hauntology of my family.