User:Anita!/thesisdraft

Introduction

Sound connects. Sound creates friction. Sound frees from control. Sound passes through. Sound is not tangible but exists so powerfully in space. It identifies places so strongly but is not usually thought of, or used to describe one, other than ‘noisy’ or ‘silent’. When thinking about what you hear when you are in public space, it is quite rare for a sound to be noticed if it fits into the expected range of common, 'boring' and mundane.

In this essay, I want to provide the reader with methods, exercises, experiments and listening techniques, and issue an invitation to listen, truly listen, and not just hear. In 'Deep Listening' Pauline Oliveros highlights the difference between listening and hearing. Listening requires attention, whereas hearing is simply the perception of sound waves received by the human ear. Oliveros highlights how she observed musicians were not listening, but hearing their own performances, creating a "disconnection from the environment". I notice that this is also the case when in public space. Whether you might be sitting, walking or cycling, all the sound around you is something that just falls into the background, to which not much attention is payed.

We will explore the urban landscape with no visual aid, noticing new imaginary sonic paths and composing new ones ourselves.

Current chapter

I walk around a square close to my house, on a Sunday, following the lines created by how the cobblestone has been placed in the pavement. As I do this, I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Time to listen.

I hear

A constant buzz coming from the traffic.

The voice of a child, breaking through the air.

Construction noises, coming from the pavement being repaired.

Some metal falling on the ground, making a very distinct sound. Maybe keys?

Wind gusts, making the last autumn leaves fall on the ground in a nearby park.

Some seagulls crying, maybe looking for scraps, leftover from yesterdays market.

The loud motor of a car driving quite close behind me, I wonder where it is going.

It is quiet for where I am, I can almost hear how cold the air around me is.

As I listen, I start to notice how my imagination runs, questioning the identity of these sounds, speculating about the context in which they exist, where they come from and where they will go. Personifying sounds allows you to listen more deeply, I think. Imagining a story around common sounds makes it apparent that each time you truly listen, and not just hear, the city soundscape is diverse. Like listening to the same instrument playing different songs. Of course they are correlated, almost all the same notes are used, but there are many variations in the rhythm, pitch and volume. At first, these changes might seem small, but the more you listen, the more you start to be able to identify these changes that make the practice of listening to the city soundscape so exciting.

So often sound is ignored when outside. People move with headphones in their ears, listening to music, covering the noise of the city. Even when people hear them, the soundscape of the city falls in the background, with no one really paying attention to it, unless something out of the ordinary starts happening. Actively listening all the time can be overwhelming, but when it becomes a standard practice to not pay attention to sound, so much is lost.

Listening is important to notice change.

Listening is important to defining a space.

Listening is important understanding urban condition.

——— add some form of transition?———

My experience with sound in public space is quite different in the Netherlands compared to in my home country, Italy. Noise is increasingly restricted to designated spaces and places who still remain ’porous’(René Boer, Smooth City). It has a clearly defined area in which to exist, and if it tries to leave from what has been established as its place, it is to be removed. I think back to this particular moment in the first year of living here, when a neighbour complained about me and my roommate making too much noise while talking on our balcony. They did this in a written letter, calling our voices shrill and booming. I remember being shocked at how the ‘noise’ of our conversations was rejected in such a strong way.

This experience in particular, made me realise how sound is perceived differently. Generally, I have noticed much more space being kept for manufactured silence in cities. By manufactured silence, I mean silece that does not exist because of its own accord, but silence that exists as a consequence of prohibitions and regulations.

The attempted control of sound in public space with rules, not only around noise itself, but the general public environment, increasingly removes and blurs the identity of first a place, and then in time, even a whole city.

This creates such a clear disconnect with the urban environment. Listening to a less scripted environment helps understanding its identity. When a space is naturally quiet, it says a lot about it as well.