In Response to The Art of Instant Gratification

This article is probably far too brief to do what it really wants to do. Still the general argument it seems to be trying to address has been discussed to the point that most readers will probably read a lot between the lines. Personally I feel very drawn to physical art as opposed to information based art. For this reason I still have not converted to digital photography.

As far as photographs being used as mementos there is one key argument I can make for 35mm. Digital is so easy that people tend to place less importance on the images they make using these means. They take hundreds if not thousands of photos and put close close to no effort into doing so. Like anything else abundance and availability greatly decreases value. I know it is all psychological but it is definitely still true. In the early days of photography people would cling to a single photo of someone and the relationship between that photo and the person was therefore much more personal.

In Response to John Cage's The Future of Music: Credo

First off I would like to say that I love how Cage structured this writing. He basically has the main statement written out in all capital letters with explanations of different parts that break up this main statement spread throughout. I thoughts this was very neat and a good way of organizing one's thoughts.

As for the content I found it very interesting to read as I begin to score my video with sound. In the first drift all of my recordings were left to themselves. Now though I am able to do just what Cage is talking about and orchestrate using non-musical sounds. I especially enjoyed what he had to say about this theremin. This idea of starting off with an idea or material that could possibly bring about something quite unique only to undermine it's possibilites by utilizing it in a streamlined way really resonated with me. I am really going to try and keep this in mind as I go forward with my sound editing.

I also really like his ideas about how this evolution must also then bring about a whole new structural system. It reminded me a bit of Walter Murch's idea of trying to find or develop a uniform system for annotating film editing. In both cases I guess the idea that i am really drawn to is that you can take something which on the surface seems less structured and break it down and find the patterns at work.

Overall I found this writing to be very stimulating on a creative level and very interesting in that it was written much earlier than I would have thought had I not know better.

Ten Questions

Here are ten questions inspired by my first drift experience that I will try to use to inform my second.

1)Is the sonic environment similar if you go south on the lake instead of north?

2)what is the difference if the sound is recorded during the day as opposed to night?

3)What about the brief time in between day and night?

4)Would I get more interesting recordings if I did not use a static mic setup?

5)How will it change my decisions in sound recording when the end goal is to present them within the context of a short film?

6)What if I tried a more structured way of deciding what to record? i.e. what if I said that after every 5 minutes of walking I would record wherever I was? This way I might find things other than the more obvious sounds most of us are drawn to.

7)How can I find a better balance between foreground and background sounds?

8)How can I cut down on wind sounds? Is there a particular time/place that is less prone to it?

9)What if I used the presence of people in my recording environment to get more varied recordings?

10)What kinds of sounds play against images better in a non-sync environment?

Drift Assessment

While going on my soundwalk not everything turned out as peachy as I had hoped. The biggest aggravation for me was that it was extremely windy and there were some more open places that I tried to record in that I just wasn't able to get something usable. On top of that I really didn't know the area that I was exploring and so I ended up at the end of my walk at the end of a long peninsula at midnight. The walk back was not the most enjoyable. Not all was bad though. There were a few points in my walk that were very relaxing. The two main times that I remember were both when I was recording sounds. First there was my experience at the snack stand. There was at this point wind but it was not as unbearable as it would get later and it was just really nice to just listen to the flags flapping and kind of zone out. The other sound that I found very relaxing to record was when I was in a spot near the 94 bridge where on one side of me was the sounds of crickets and such in a field and on the other side was the gentle flow of late night commuters. One surprise from my soundwalk experience was how much things really do die down at night since I did all my recording from 8 PM to midnight. Another was that while all of the places in the industrial area seemed to be up and running I never really saw any people there at all. It was quite creepy. The biggest surprise though was listening to what I had recorded once I got home. There was things I thought I got in recordings but didn't and there were also good surprises that showed up as I listened. That was very interesting. My favorite experience on my soundwalk sadly didn't quiet translate in the recording. I was standing next to a salt mountain that was a few stories high. I was there for a while just getting general ambiance when all of a sudden an avalanche of sorts happened on the salt mountain. It really surprised me and it felt really cool that I had stumbled upon something much more interesting than I had first thought.

Soundwalk Response

Were you able to find places and spaces where you could really listen?

Yes but sometimes is was pretty difficult. The further we got away from the streets I think it was generally easier for me to make things out.

Was it possible to move without making a sound?

Not really. Sometimes it was less obvious then others, but it was always there.

What happened when you plugged your ears, and then unplugged them?

While my ears were plugged I could still hear but it was a muffled lower kind of general noise. Once I unplugged my ears there was an initial almost blast of sound as my ears readjusted before I went back to normal hearing.

In your sound log exercise, what types of sounds were you able to hear? List them.

scans of my sound log are forthcoming.

Were you able to differentiate between sounds that had a recognizable source and those sounds you could not place?

Yes. I could tell were most of the sounds were coming from but some, mostly buzzing, humming, etc. were harder to place.

Human sounds? Mechanical sounds? Natural sounds?

For the most part. Like I said in the previous answer the hardest thing for me to distinguish was more general constant tones. I remember one of the points when we were walking through some trees I couldn't tell if a sound I heard was some distant mechanical hum or if it was from insects.

Were you able to detect subtleties in the everpresent drone?

You could definitely feel shifts as we went from different distinct areas.

Extremely close sounds? Sounds coming from very far away?

Close sounds were easy but only a few of the very far away sounds really made it though. Most of them got lost in the general noise.

What kinds of wind effects were you able to detect (for example, the leaves of trees don't make sounds until they are activated by the wind)?

Besides wind on trees or against my ears the most obvious wind caused sound was a few times I heard things being blown across the pavement.

Were you able to intervene in the urban landscape and create your own sounds by knocking on a resonant piece of metal, activating wind chimes, etc.?

I did not but I did notice a few others that did.

Do you feel you have a new understanding or appreciation of the sounds of our contemporary landscape/cityscape?

I think the most interesting thing to me about the soundwalk was how many different sounds and distinct sound environments we encountered in such a relatively small area.

How do you think your soundwalk experience will affect your practice as a media artist, if at all?

I'm not really sure yet. Maybe I'll pay more attention to the variety of sounds more.


Scans of my sound list and sound map are forthcoming.