Sound Seminar

In our last seminar we were given the brief for our first project, the project was a sound project and as such we were also taken to Chris Watson sound exhibition nearby. The exhibition was a sound map of Sheffield; as such it consisted of recordings from many different locations in and around Sheffield. Being new to Sheffield I hadn't been to many of the places that I heard in the recordings but I also found that I didn't need to have been there. The sounds were so immersive that it took very little effort to imagine being in that place.

On a later visit to the same exhibition I found that moving around the gallery, caused the sound to change slightly. This was further emphasise on the exhibitions immersive nature, I wasn't just seeing the place through the sound I could walk around it, experience it from different points. Although this was mostly done through the way the gallery was set up and is a little harder to achieve through a sound piece alone, it doesn't take away from the impressive immersion that the sound piece generates.

What I think I took away most from this exhibition was a sense of just how powerful sound could be on its own, I already understood that music was a very powerful tool and could be used to manipulate emotions and atmospheres but I had never truly appreciated how ordinary sounds on their own could create such powerful atmospheres. This hasn't so much as inspired me but more made me determined to create a powerful sound project that has the ability to immerse an audience in a similar way that Chris Watson's exhibition does.