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.