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Anita!/thesisdraftSteveNotes

Listening to the City [working title]

Anita Burato Colamedici

April 2025

Thesis submitted to:

Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy,

in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the final examination for the degree of:

Master of Arts in Fine Art & Design: Experimental Publishing (XPub).

Adviser: Steve Rushton

Second Reader: [ **]

Word count: 1860 approx

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 (me and you reading this) will explore the urban landscape with no visual aid, noticing new imaginary sonic paths and composing new ones ourselves.

do you listen or do you hear?

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 how they make the practice of listening to the city soundscape so exciting.

So often sound is ignored outside. People move with headphones in their ears, listening to music, covering the noise of the city. Even when people hear it, 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. The sound of the city is so rich of information, is nuanced, variable and filled with life, which at the end of the day is what makes a city one.

Listening is important to notice change.

Listening is important to defining a space.

Listening is important understanding urban condition.

In [Listening to the City] I will look into listening to the city soundscape using three separate approaches.

In this chapter, I will look at listening in public space from my personal experience and try to stress why I think it is such a crucial practice in understanding an urban area. I will compare environments in which I have listened, and try to outline how their soundscape highlights the social and cultural differences between them.

In the second chapter ’Time for Listening’, I will provide you with a manual of sorts, containing visual annotations, case studies (meaning fieldwork) and indications to perform guided walks focusing on listening.

In the the final chapter ‘Caught Sounds’, I will present the recorded soundscapes, and show ways in which it is possible to play with them outside of their natural environment, documenting part of the process of developing [grad project title, with a footnote explaining it is grad project for context]

My experience with sound in public space is quite different in the Netherlands compared to in my home country, Italy. Noise in the Netherlands is increasingly restricted to designated spaces and places that still remain ’porous¹’(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, describing 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.

I propose silence in the city can be divided into two main categories: manufactured (or prescribed) silence and natural silence.

Natural silence is what you hear when you walk out on the street at two in the morning, when you are in a park at night or what you hear when inhabitants of the city are asleep. Silence that is there because no one else is.

Prescribed silence instead, is the type of silence that occurs as a result of a rule or regulation imposed on a specific space. This rule can be direct, like:

NO loud noises after 8 PM!

NO speaking in this train cart!

or indirect, but with a similar effect on the environment like:  

NO skating!

NO loitering!

NO music!

NO taking on the phone!

The rules just mentioned are an example of attempts to control sound in public space by using prohibitions, not only around noise itself, but also around the general public environment. This can in turn remove and blur the identity of a place. Of course, we all deserve to be able to rest in peace, but there could be a space for this naturally occurring noise² to exist.

This creates a clear disconnect between the urban reality and the people inhabiting it. This is because it can change and manipulate the identity of a space in time. Listening to a less scripted environment helps understanding its identity. For example, if I enter a space where I hear a lot of chatter, I know it is a space where you can probably spend some time and hang out. If I hear skateboard wheels, I can assume there are certain architectural features good for tricks, like ramps, ledges etc. But when loitering and skating are not allowed, this hypothetical space is no longer one for gathering, and the people involved in these activities become unwelcome.

When thinking about silence and noise, the question of what is the difference between noise and sound also arises. According to Wikipedia, from a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium.

Noise is sound, but undesired and not intentional. So if we consider this, city soundscapes would by definition be ‘noise’.

However, I would like to suggest a change in your perception of the word noise, from undesired, and not intentional, to surprising and serendipitous. With this slight change in attitude towards the word, the noise of the city suddenly becomes a soundscape, something you want to listen to.

This is why I want to listen, and play with city noise.

¹ In his book ‘Smooth City’, René Boer describes ‘porosity’ as kind of an opposite to the smooth city. A smooth city, is a city where urban space is stripped of its city-like qualities, and urban life is compressed into a seamless experience, leaving no space incompatible with its clearly defined norms, a city in constant pursue of perfection. A porous space, is one where a ‘blur of strict boundaries in the urban fabric, a mixed, complex and intense urban environment’ [page 162, 163]

² By naturally occurring noise, I mean noise and sound that is created as a result of people existing in a space, [like chatter, footsteps, the sound of a bike wheel turning] as well as sound coming from the environment itself, like birds chirping, wind etc.

Time for listening

This chapter will contain methods, exercises and experiments made through the development of the text, to help in listening carefully. It will 'activate' the research explored in the first chapter by showing how I will implement some of the examples into my own listening practice, as well as illustrate and propose exercises (that I will also carry out) for the reader to perform. I would like to include some space for city soundscape composition for the reader in the text, as a sort of guided soundwalk. To me, this chapter is the heart of the thesis as it advances methods for listening in public space and invites to implement them. In connection with the graduation project, I will also present the methods I used to ‘catch’ the sounds I will use for the textile soundboard.

Caught Sounds

Observations on the sounds encountered during the research period (stemming from the 'Time for listening' chapter). I would like to include samples of sounds in the text, both in an auditory and written capacity. I would also like to issue an invitation for the reader to write down their observations inside of the body of this chapter as well. A reflection on the small differences and changes noticed, depending on the listening session, for example, does the exercise being performed affect what i hear? I am also planning to use this chapter to connect with the graduation project, writing about the process of selecting sounds and showing ways to play with them.

References

Deep Listening A Composer's Sound Practice, Pauline Oliveros

Walking, Listening and Soundmaking, Elena Biserna

Walking from scores, Elena Biserna

LISTEN, Max Neuhaus

Inaudible Cities, Jacek Smolicki

Listening: A Research Method in Art & Design, edited by Alice Twemlow

Basta Now: women, trans & non-binary in experimental music, Fanny Chiarello

Smooth City, Renè Boer

The rest is noise, Alex Ross

Scratch Music, Cornelius Cardew