“Kwai Tsing Container Terminal” is a location study about the sounds of global logistics, the efforts that make our world run. The sounds of busyness, heavy machines, pure noise, but also calmness and quite come together in this vast area that is the Kwai Tsing Container Terminal. However, aspects of nature are still present in the sounds that make up this place. Sounds of the sea, intrinsically connected to a harbor, as well as the sounds of the elements like rain or wind.

The global supply chains make the daily life we know possible, tightly connects the world to distribute goods, and ensure the stability of global economies and exchange. Hong Kong, as one of the free ports in Asia, ranks in the top ten of busiest ports in the world, handling around 21 million TEUs (‘Twenty-foot Equivalent Units’, or standard size shipping containers) annually, which equates to around 90% of all wares going through Hong Kong by weight, connecting over 460 destinations throughout the world (HKMPB, n.d., HKCTOA, n.d.). Busyness is in the nature of the place.

The project aims to capture the space and feel of the place through several audio recordings covering multiple parts of the terminal area, in an attempt to appropriately represent the atmosphere of the environment. Among the sounds we find the expected and potentially familiar sounds of logistics, like handling packaging materials and moving things around, and heavy machinery. But we also find other sounds we might not have expected, or rather the absence of sound. Like the perceived quietness and serenity found in the vast open spaces or between the deep canyons of stored containers waiting for further shipment. However, the place is never truly quiet. The faint but audible hum of the nearby highway blends into the environment and keeps it from ever going silent. Constant noise is an inherent part of the place and only distinguishes in loudness, not in presence or absence.

The 7:05 minute soundscape is stitched together from multiple field recordings made around the terminal area. This has been done to emphasize on certain sounds and aspects of the place, as well as condense the busyness and otherwise vast area into a single, seamlessly at once perceivable space. The soundscape furthermore combines stereo and B- format ambisonic sound recordings together. The stereo recordings are converted into ambisonic sounds in the software “Reaper” and are placed in 3D space to recreate some of their spatial feel.

“Kwai Tsing Container Terminal” is an attempt at an immersive sound experience, aimed at making people experience a place otherwise difficult to get to and often restricted in access.