Today’s tutorial was largely spent brainstorming in our groups various approaches to Project 3 Brief: No Mic, No Camera.

Ironically sparked by the failing internet, conversation turned to the more technical constraints of our brief such as the employment of sound/track(s) by documentary film makers and the purposes, constraints, and implications that inform these soundscapes.

The discussion while focussed on the logistical and pragmatic issues around non-diegetic sound and its distracting effects on the audience, raised further some of the possibilities we could explore through thinking about sound more creatively rather than pragmatically. This is perhaps the criteria which most excites me: subverting established paradigms to communicate new narratives.

For example, similar to many indexical representations of phenomena, sound derives much of its resonance from the cultural, historical, and social contexts it breeds itself from, in accompaniment to the contexts audiences bring with them. Here, a national anthem becomes an auditory metonymy for patriotism. But, juxtaposed against images of violence and bigotry,  more complex responses and ideas may form: the hypocrisy of armchair democracy, the corruption of politics, the abuse of rhetoric, and so forth. Evidently, it is not necessarily ontological or original sound

Working within these associations and skilfully manipulating them to breed conflict excites me both creatively and conceptually. Stereotypes are tedious to watch and listen to. Even parodies of stereotypes become burdensome in a world largely fixated on repackaged narratives and recycled archetypes.