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