Janet Cardiff: White Chapel Walk

Janet Cardiff uses sound in a three level spatial structure that provides the listener with a unique and involved perspective of the journey that they are being led on. In the radio interview they discuss Cardiff's ability to make listeners feel as if she is inside their head. By capturing sounds that we hear in everyday life and putting them directly up to the ear forces us to take in every sound and feel like it is surrounding us, swallowing us. During the interview they also mentioned that people tend to block out about 90% of the sound that they hear around them. By listening to one of Cardiff's recordings you become overcome by every sound that makes up the world we know. Since we are hearing sounds that we previously ignored the recordings create a new lush environment that intrigues the senses.
Cardiff not only creates a textural world of sound through her recordings but also a fluid movement through space and time. In the interview it was discussed how Cardiff layers her sounds in the way that our history is layered. There is the present but with portals or windows to the past emerging randomly across the surface. The sounds and voices that exist in the recordings are open ended so that the listeners can make their own connections to what they hear but Cardiff does make implications to events of the past.
To achieve all of these effects Cardiff begins by using her own voice as a guide in the foreground. She tells them where to walk while interrupting to tell the listener about something she sees or feels. Sometimes she will mention a dream or a thought. When she speaks of other people she sees or dreams of another voice will appear in the foreground and will interject a thought or respond to Cardiff herself. In the middle ground you can hear her footsteps as she is walking. Occasionally throughout the piece music will start to play more in the middle ground so that you can hear it more clearly but it does not over power the sound of Cardiff's voice. In the background is where Cardiff plays most of the other environmental sounds such as the ocean, birds singing, and grass rustling. As she moves through the piece she will occasionally stop speaking and let the other sounds come more to the foreground so that they can be more directly heard.
By taking advantage of the foreground, middle ground, and background Cardiff has created a full effect for her listeners. By this I mean she is really engaging her listener into the world she has created through sound. It sounds like you are in an actual place because you can her footsteps and the surrounding sounds that you would normally hear if you were in a garden, or by the beach or on a path.

http://faculty.frostburg.edu/art/fhamiditoosi/audio_files/cardiff_whitechapel_walk.mp3

Sound Journey: Project 1 Experiment

http://www.smcm.edu/users/aamiller/raining.mp3

For this sound experiment I tried to create a journey of someone who gets caught in the rain and escapes into a cafe full of music, laughter and dancing before going to face the rain again. I have always loved the way the rain sounds and I am myself a very social person and enjoy dancing and laughing. So for this little project I decided to just take some of those sounds that I like and create an everyday story behind. While I was putting together the sounds I thought about all the times I've gotten caught in the rain and how nice it was to find my way back into a warm place.

Project 1: Sound Journey

For this project I was thinking about capturing the journey a wildlife photographer would undergo when pursuing a subject. I personally study photography and I always find the journey one travels in the process of getting that perfect shot to be interesting and unique every time. In photography I believe that it is really the journey and the personal interaction the photographer experiences while shooting that gives photographs a life or essence which is so captivating for the intended audience. So with that in mind I thought about three possible locations I would want my wildlife photographer to potentially travel to. The three locations I'm deciding between are Alaska, Africa, and the Rainforest. If the location is Alaska I want to gather sounds such as snow crunching, wind, running water, trees rustling and the sound of the camera's shutter opening and closing. If the location is Africa I want to collect sounds such as hooves hitting the ground, jeep noises, tribal drums/other instruments, and again the sound of the camera's shutter opening and closing. Finally if the location is in the Rainforest I want sounds of rain falling down on leaves, rustling of trees and other plant life, birds singing, feet walking through underbrush, and the opening and closing of the camera's shutter.

Artist Lecture: Melissa Dean "Consumed"

I attended the artist lecture by Melissa Dean on January 22nd at 4:30. Melissa discussed the work she had on display as well as work she had done previously. She explained a little about where the concepts for her work come from and how they have developed over time. I found Melissa's work interesting in its process. The way she uses everyday consumer products to establish a form of art that strips away the original meaning of the object used is in some way reflective of the world of art itself. In the process of creating a work of art many artists start with an idea that revolves around something such as nature, emotional states, material objects, etc. Those ideas are then tweaked, transformed, manipulated and so on until the work takes on a life of its own. Melissa Dean's work starts from consumer products, which we all use everyday but yet the work that comes from that starting point alludes to something more than simple product display. While the work is being molded, twisted, manipulated, etc it begins to take on new meaning, which comes from the process itself more than anything. Melissa herself did not seem to be a hundred percent sure as to what her work was supposed to represent past the initial concept. I believe that this can be true of most artist because it is often the process in which a work of art is made that gives it some of its meaning so sometimes even the artist themselves can still be trying to understand the final outcome.
I found Melissa Dean's work both aesthetically pleasing in its layout as well as mentally stimulating. She creates her work through layers so visually there are multiple layers for the eye to explore but at the same time her work represents multiple layers of meaning that may be different for every viewer.

Sound Art Links

http://ubu.wfmu.org/sound/airwaves/Airwaves_13_ANDERSON_TWO-SONGS-FOR-TAPE-BOW-VIOLIN.mp3
I thought this sound link was particulary interesting because of the journey the sounds create for the listener.

The Use of Forms (Ken Ishii)

http://www.kenishii.com/