Sound Walk One: 10 Questions

1.Were you able to find places and spaces where you could really listen? Yes, anywhere I went I could really listen, you just need to focus on what your surroundings are, and not be oblivious to it.
2.Was it possible to move without making a sound? It was impossible to move without making a noise, cause either you can hear yourself breath, or with wet shoes you can not help but to make a noise while you walk.
3.What happened when you plugged your ears, and then unplugged them? When I plug my ears it tunes out the environment around you, and you mostly just hear your pulse and breathing patterns.
4.What types of sounds were you able to hear? List them. The sounds are listed on my sound log which is in the same blog.
5.Were you able to differentiate between sounds that had a recognizable source and those sounds you could not place? For the most part all the sounds that I heard were recognizable, and could record what they were coming from.
6.Were you able to differentiate human, mechanical, and natural sounds? Yes, I think these were the easiest sounds to differentiate from. Each one has a specific kind of sound, and I think we are so use to the different sounds that each kind makes that it’s easier for us to pick them apart.
7.Were you able to detect subtleties, changes, or variations in the everpresent drone? When we stopped and listened in the Union, the overbearing drone was hard to over hear anything else, but once in while you would hear a distinct ground or person that was either laughing or coughing.
8.Extremely close sounds? Sounds coming from very far away? Sound which were closer to you are much easier to pick out what they are, and how they are made. But also it depends on how loud the sound it. If it is farther away and makes a loud enough noise that would also be able to be recognized, unless it echo through the landscape. In that case it would be hard to detect where it originally came from.
9.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.? As I was walking I would either be clicking my pen, or scraping my feet against the ground to make a combination of sounds that went together.
10.Do you feel you have a new understanding or appreciation of the sounds of our contemporary landscape/cityscape? I think that this activity was just a beginning for a new understanding of the sounds around us. But I think as these projects go on my understanding of the sounds around me will grow.
11.How do you think your soundwalk experience will affect your practice as a media artist, if at all? I think it is just another element to be aware of, along with the composition, texture, depth, and all the other things a media artist should be aware of. If they can get the same effect in composition, but get a better effect in sound, then that nature sound should be sought out.