I found the reading for this week, Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book, really fascinating to read. A lot of the lists she write downs or the thoughts she has are still very similar to what we might write down 1000 years later. One that made my laugh was her list of infuriating things and she wrote, “a guest who arrives when you have something urgent to do and stays talking for ages”.  It reminded me a bit of the lists and feelings I would write in my notes app on my phone which are almost always just a collection of random but pretty personal thoughts or feelings. For example, I’ve got list of baby names, a list of my favourite coffee orders, a list of books I want to read and a list of groovy cafe names for my non-existent cafe. I think personal lists may come across as less functional than a practical list but perhaps for the person who wrote the list – it is entirely functional. A concept we discussed in class is that the author is integral to a personal list and will often emphasis bias towards the list writers personal beliefs/opinions.

The experiment below is a sound piece that reflect my personal list of: “Things that remind me of loneliness”.
– Coming home during a storm
– Calls that go unanswered
– A crying dog
– A mother trying to comfort a baby

I initially was going to write a list on “Things that cause me to go into sensory overdrive” which included:
– the smell of a butcher
– the smell of a seafood market
– car lights in my rear view mirror when driving
– the texture of animal fat when I chew it

However, after some peer feedback I decided that the items I had listed would be hard to represent through sound. There was constructive alternatives suggested such as using lots of sounds of lights turning on simultaneously to create a heightened  sensory effect however I felt that took away from what made it personal to me, which is the notion of car lights flickering constantly.

 

References:

Perkovic, J 2013. sei shonagon’s lists, Guerrilla Semiotics, viewed 9 Nov 2021, <https://guerrillasemiotics.com/2013/05/sei-shonagons-lists/>.