Tomorrow is when I am rostered on to exhibit my work. So today, I went through in fine detail and unpacked all the reasoning and thinking behind each of my chosen sounds, videos and images for my four selected phrases.

1. Finding Excitement in Boredom

• Mundane actions traced from something that is natural
• Luxury of boredom – home being the centre of boredom
• The struggles of enjoying boredom, or even recognising it – are we ever really bored?
• Plain wall – finding the detail

PHOTOS:

1. White wall

• Marks and smudges on it
• Tells a story, memories
• Traces of human action that is now gone but remains are still there
• Marks are all different sizes, shapes and shades from each other
• The texture of the wall – small bumps, almost grainy, slight traces of light blue in amongst the white

2. Back fence

• Finding the beauty in the rustic texture of it,
• Black, brown and white all intertwined
• Spider web
• Visually being able to see it’s purpose – the action of opening a door – interesting to note how there are visually two ways of opening and closing it, but only one in operation — old vs new.
• Green outline of the different colour and textured wood of the gate

3. Chopping board

• Attention to detail – Knife markings
• Very distinct and obvious texture and pattern in the wood
• Traces of food left behind

4. Window

• Creates such a beautiful light from the outside – naturally filling the inside space
• Spider webs
• Smudges all over that is only showing through the light hitting it at certain angles and certain ways
• Physical barrier between the outside world and inside

SOUNDS:

• Fridge
• Laptop typing
• Heater
• Stove top

VIDEOS:

• Stove top flames
• Fascinated with all the colours
• How gas works with fire to create it
• The need for oxygen fills the space – without it it would be physically dead
• Picture frame
• Reflection of trees outside moving in the breeze
• Sort of serves as a double purpose – to display art and as a mirror
• The idea of looking beyond what you can see, diving deeper into it and seeing that there’s more to offer
• Plant
• Ordinary plant from the outside
• Seeing the natural beauty within the soil – evidence of living
• Wall
• Lots of shadows casted upon the white wall
• Providing the blandness with a level of excitement, story and character

 

2. An Empty Full Space

• Do you need human body and sound to make something have a sense of fullness when it is vacated as empty?
• Emptiness tied to selfishness, humanity is key to emptiness
• Turning the TV on to fill the space, visually and sonically
• Challenging emptiness

PHOTOS:

1. Ceiling of house

• Very high, seems as though there is so much space to vertically fill
• Creatures living in the top crevices – it’s home to them, they technically fill the space

2. Living room

• TV on to visually fill the space
• Some people turn on their TV to fill a space both visually and sonically, particularly when home alone – to have the feeling of human connection

3. Chair and table

• Empty space because no humans are in it – is this selfishness? Do humans need to be present in a space in order for it to feel full?

4. Speaker/radio

• Sonically filling up a space (same reason as the TV)

SOUNDS:

1. TV, changing channels
2. Radio

• Having it on for human contact
• As if someone is there actually talking, filling up the space

3. Eating brekky

• The echoes
• Sound of spoon hitting the bowl fills up kitchen, echoes in it’s chambers

4. Kettle boiling and making a cup of tea

VIDEOS:

• Fan
• Both the air and sound filling up the space
• Dining chair
• Person isn’t sitting in it – is it empty?
• Plate, knife and fork
• Empty plate
• Meant to have food on it
• Ready for humans to eat
• It’s still full – patterns, purpose etc.
• Lounge chair
• Traces of human activity (magazine and laptop)
• Humans leaving their traces in the space
• Is it empty?

 

3. Noticing the Irregular

• Patterns
• Rather than listening to/looking at a consistent pattern, looking at a irregular pattern – what makes it irregular? Why do I usually only notice patterns?
• Repetitions

PHOTOS:

1. Cushions on couch

• Irregular pattern
• The idea of physically being able to arrange objects into a pattern but deliberately choosing not to – how we dictate how space is used

2. Drink bottle

• The dent in the side of such a smooth metal bottle
• Irregular because at the time it was a shame, however now it functions as a hand placement and is really comfortable
• How the shape of something can be unintentionally reformed for the better
• How humans adapt to objects but also into space itself

3. Magnets on fridge

• Again the potentially to be in a pattern but are not
• Is it still a pattern though?

4. Grapes

• One side gone, half the side taken off by humans
• Lopsided – irregular in it’s pattern/shape/construction

SOUNDS:

1. Birds chirping

• Interesting timing, levels of sound and pitch

2. Irregular tapping noise

• Man made
• Suggests impatience

3. Clock

• Very consistent and loud tick
• The clock doesn’t even show the correct time though
• Inconsistent clicks

4. Footsteps

• Walking in an off rhythm way
• No set pace or consistency

4. Coming Alive

• The idea of visualising a story/process/anything through what you can hear
• Piecing together a puzzle – puzzle being a combination of sound and visual
• Listening to every day practices that we take part in and visualising what it looks like based on our knowledge and familiarity of things we do every day
• For visuals – being able to imagine the sound by looking at the object and what it does

PHOTOS:

1. Door deco

• Imagining the sound when wind blows across it or a hand goes across it
• Wooden, delicate, soft yet somewhat unpleasant
• You can’t avoid the sound – it’s inevitable when going in and out of the door

2. Fan

• Frequently used appliance in summer
• Turning it on
• The sound it makes when it turns, and how the sound changes as it goes past you every time
• When it’s on you how the sound is different due to your face being affected as well

3. Exercise bike

• Not a common thing to have in the household
• Interval training – imagining the sound as the pedals move faster then softer every few minutes

4. Wrapping

• Classic sound of unwrapping something from plastic – easy to visualise, to imagine the sound and its process
• Some plastic wrappers are bigger than others

 

SOUNDS:

1. Process of washing hands in bathroom
2. Cooking – opening a packet, pouring into bowl, putting in microwave
3. Making the bed
4. Having a shower

• All activities that are able to be visualised by listening to the sound process

I have finalised my four phrases. They are:

• Finding excitement in boredom
• A full empty space
• Noticing the irregular
• Coming alive

I have a few ideas in what sounds and visuals I am going to do for each.

For ‘coming alive’ I am going to record sounds in the bathroom – maybe four different things you do in the bathroom. For example, take a shower, wash your hands, brush your teeth. This is because they are able to be easily visualised when hearing them as they are a step by step process. Also because when I was doing my sound experiment at home, my cousin went into the bathroom and had a shower, becoming the most predominate sound in the space, and I was able to visualise her process because it’s so familiar as every day practice. This is where I was interested in exploring this concept further, and this assignment allows me to do so. It might be a bit more difficult with roles reversed though – so having visuals where the sound needs to be imagined – maybe take photos of every day activities? Or just photos of objects where the sound is easily identifiable such as a vacuum cleaner.

 

After having time in class today to brainstorm ideas for our assignment 2 concepts, I feel as though I am on track. I spoke a few through to Robbie and he gave me further pointers into what to explore exactly within my main concepts.

 

My current ideas for assignment 2:

• Something to do with light/shadows/direction
• Noticing the unnoticeable – spider webs in the garden,
• Structure, dimensioning in the garden e.g.
• The idea of an empty space actually being really full …. Exploring that in detail, observe different
  Reverb – understanding space having dimensions, being able to hold stuff, get a sense of there being a body of space that has a thickness to it.
  Do you need human body and sound to make something have a sense of fullness – when it’s vacated is it empty? Emptiness tied to our selfishness, humanity is key to emptiness.
  Turning radio tv on to keep fullness – emptiness fills silence.
  Challenging emptiness.
• Symmetry – relating more to colour
• Repetition – Similar to patterns, but more consistent and obvious
• Coming alive – the idea of visualising a story or just an action through listening to the sounds and putting your generic everyday experiences into play (e.g. listening to someone having a shower in the bathroom, visualising step by step)
• Mundane – Boring stuff, everyday reality – so mundane that it could drive you insane, triggers anxiety when observing fully – noticed when I did my home experiment…. The twitch of the light being the same as my eye…
  Mundane actions traced from something that is natural.
  What we take for granted.
  Inactive – background to it is active (turning a light switch on).
  Mundane can turn into a possibility.
  Luxury of boredom – home being the centre of boredom.
  Plain wall boring – finding the excitement within boring things/boredom.
• Patterns – sound rhythms, patterns the shadows make in the garden (checked from the fence and chair) – rather than finding the pattern, looking and noticing the irregular
• Feelings – feelings or emotions triggered through certain colours or sound….

Sound experiment at home – continue to think about how we loop everyday soundscapes to create a pattern, or transform the meaning of the sound into something that differs from it’s origin. My sound was my fingers running down the blind in my bedroom above my bed. The sound is almost gritty, with echoes of plastic throughout it.

Going around to everyone in the class and listening to the sounds they had looped on their laptop, I tried to picture what it was. I thought the one next to me was a click of a laptop mouse pad, however was actually a light switch being turned on and off. Once it’s looped and repeated over and over again, it begins to have a different sound all together, becoming annoying and irritating, and I start to hear it in a different way. It’s difficult to explain, but it’s as if the timing, tone and time of the sound all at once changes, and it’s hard to hear it the same way I did at the beginning after this experience. It’s like when someone says a name or a word over and over again, it becomes very weird and has a whole different meaning to how you originally perceived it. Interesting!!

I’ve done a bit of sound subjects and over the past few years in media so I’m familiar with the programs such as Audacity and Audition.

Recording sound out in the corridor – mine being the metal lid to my drink bottle hitting the side of a metal handrail. Getting back into the classroom and looping it in the Audacity program. When looped over and over again, it began to sound more like a Ping-Pong ball bouncing on a table rather than the lid of the bottle …

 

The room all of a sudden filled up with all these different noises – and the weird thing was I wasn’t even getting frustrated, it became rather soothing. Almost as if a huge music composition. All these ordinary, boring and plain sounds being looped over and over at the same time became like an orchestra of mundane sounds.

I really loved sharing my mind map to my table group. I didn’t think it was that exciting when I was actually doing the exercise, and I even thought that they might find it boring when I explained it to them, but everyone really enjoyed it! It was really helpful for me to be able to share what I saw and heard because it’s much easier to explain it rather than just write it down on paper – and everyone thought it was really interesting, gave me great positive feedback.

It’s funny because visually, my mind-map indicates my process of thinking. I started in the top right hand corner and eventually made my way clockwise around the poster. However, my time limit was exceeded before I reached the full circuit.

So from these mind-maps, as a group we selected four words that stood out in being an interesting concept. Our four words were:

1. Trace
2. Calm
3. Silence
4. Pattern

We collected visual images that represent these four words, collecting four photos for each word.

Four I collected for the word ‘trace’.

• A used piece of chewing gum and the wrapper
• Collection of dust and hair (gross, but fascinating)
• Used tooth pick
• Single strand of hair left on the head rest of a couch

 

I really love trace as a concept. It’s really interesting. I love the idea of a physical part of someone being somewhere where they are physically not. The person was once in that particular spot, and now they are not, they have physically removed themselves from the space, however a trace of them is till there. It’s weirdly creepy! But super interesting.

What I really loved about this assignment was giving myself the chance, within my own home, to open my mind and further broaden my sonic and visual awareness.

I wanted to challenge myself in what I could gather from this home experiment assignment, so I chose a room for the sound observation that I (originally) thought would be sonically empty, and difficult to notice lots.

The living room in my house doesn’t consist of much excitement. The mundane atmosphere is drawn from the basic elements within it, such as a TV, two couches and a rug on the floor. However, after listening for about 45 minutes, I managed to hear so much more than I thought I would be able to, and it was amazing to fully unpack this.

The most noticeable noises came from the rooms branching off the living room, including the bathroom and the outdoor courtyard. There was about a 10-minute period where the bathroom was being used for a shower while I was observing the space, and my ears automatically became drawn to it as it became the most dominant sound. It was also interesting because as the different sounds of footsteps, tap running and various squeaks and creeks played out, I closed my eyes and pictured the steps as they occurred in my head. The bathroom was located behind me where I sat for the sound observation, so I couldn’t actually see what was producing those sounds therefore had to use my imagination combined with my general, everyday knowledge of the process for taking a shower.

I decided to do the visual observation in the back yard. Of course it was going to be filled with all sorts of beautiful images and elements to not only capture but then further explore. As soon as I began observing, I was writing like a maniac, jotting down every single detail of what I saw. The most dominant visual feature of the space for me the entire time was not just the huge and beautiful contrast in colours, but the way the space was arranged. Shapes of squares and rectangles all fit into one another so effortlessly, and were almost pieced together and finalised with the green tall bushed in between them. I was outside for an hour, and after I had noted all the obvious visuals in front of me including the shadows that the outdoor furniture was creating, the colour and direction of the sunlight glaring through the cracks of the trees, and the amount of green, blue and red in colour, I was able to dive deeper and use my eyes to really search for other interesting and meaningful elements. One of the most interesting and intriguing were the spider webs branched across the bushes. The way the sunlight hit them and combined with the slight breeze cause them to come alive, and despite being so small, fine and delicate, they actually developed into one of the most noticeable things in the garden. I was then able to spot them everywhere, and see how differently they were placed and how the light was reaching them differently.

I am definitely looking forward to the rest of semester after completing this first assignment, and to see where my mind and creativity takes me.

• Seeing is to understand. We understand the world based on how we see it
• Nazvabz suggests that shadows are moving rather than still
• How do we see and experience the world in different ways?

Turrell:

• Places with a powerful quality
• Creating the reality in which we live
• Exploring light and colour
• Receivers of light rather than creators
• Value light – realising value in what you see, bring out things you aren’t paying attention to

It wasn’t until starting the visual observation exercise where I noticed myself falling under the selfish habit of not paying attentions to things. I would pay attention to the obvious, and struggle/be too lazy to dive into the finer details of what I was observing.

The visual observation in the State Library was an interesting exercise. I found that everything was virtually symmetrical and very much identical. The diversity within the massive hall also stuck out to me a lot too – difference in people, lighting spots, colour arrangements – yet everything was pretty much identical. Very interesting mix.

Who knew that such an empty space could be filled with so much sound.

I was very hesitant going into this exercise. I had never done anything like it before. Sitting in a space with my fellow classmates, in absolute silence purely listening to what we could hear around us.

Location one: Around the corner from our classroom, in a big open space.

 

Location two: outside, on Bowen St, the open day for sports clubs so VERY busy. Lots happening, lots of people and sounds, but lots of the same sounds.

 

Location three: Alleyway in between RMIT buildings. Aware from the chaos of Bowen St.