oliver sacks is an interesting read. I had to go through a couple of his
artilces for a psycholinguistics course this past term. What upton mentions
below is something that peak my interested in our readings on the deaf.
sacks as well as some other writer have talk thoroughly about what it means
to lose you hearing. it is a state of almost losing your priviledge to buy
new discs, or go out and listen to your environment. the mind stores a very
ideal audible image of sound and their relationship to objects. what do you
think about when you look at rocking chair as an audible picture. the
rhythmical touch of wood on wood, or squeaks. it is fascinating.
linguistically it is a bit more weird. you really have to have spent a lot
of time with someone to experience the memetic picture of his/her voice. can
you imagine, a sound scape where only familar voices are heard, with the
other voices silent? or is this a current state of listening. anyway.
I recently saw the 'five senses' a film by jeremy podeswa. I recommend it to
any one. it is a new canadian film that transcends canadianism. in the film
a man is losing his hearing. he loves sound and in the film spends a lot of
time listening to very textured classical music. where his office in the
central building for the setting of the film an opera singer voice wafts
through the ventillation system and this man, sits on the floor, by the duct
and just listens. when he finds out that he will be deaf in a short period
of time, he makes a list of all the sound that he wants to hear, listen to
and to remember. this includes a train, a heartbeat... and his duaghter's
voice. he frequents a prostitutes whose brother also lost his hearing. on
this particular visit she takes this man to a church where a choir is
bellowing out what they do best. she places his hands on the wooden pews to
feel the vibration of the choir's voice. it is a remarkable scene and
enrichingly beautiful. the man's face opens up with this new possibilty of
hearing redirected. I don't think experiencing sound in this manner is brain
manufactured. I think this is still sense driven. also think of carson
nicolai's installation frozen water (i think this is the name) where water
amplified visually the sound of low freuency bass tones. people could see
the water being affected by sound, and I am sure you could have put your
hand in the water and felt it. the experience of sound is mainly experienced
through our ears but I think when we limit this experience to only audition
then we are limiting the potential of sound and narrowing our definitions.
..
a.
From: Michael Upton <jetjag@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: microsound <microsound@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: microsound <microsound@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [microsound] A few bits