Welcome To My World: Bridging the Divide and the Realities We Hide.

The Project Explained 

This project started as an exploration of the field of soundscapes and the potential they bring as a means of communicating meaning. A well-crafted soundscape can encompass a listener in a surround sound multi-faceted orchestra like composition. It can take a listener on a journey from an empty space into a meaningful place.

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Soundscapes tell stories, communicate meaning and create an emotional connection of understanding. They document places and spaces alongside culturally significant soundmarks. But they are just as much about the authors connection and perspective to that place as they are to the sounds that exist there. They are where a space and a presence intersect. And soundscapes are the product of the essence of that connection.

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The field of soundscapes has by definition it seems been evolving as it gains traction in the world of academia. It has gained loose definitions meant to move it away from the risk of including all recorded sounds and instead towards intentional recordings and compositions. Definitions like Isobel Anderson’s that focuses on soundscapes as a performance of the authors listening style within a space. Or Hildegard Westerkamp's that focuses on using sound compositions to conceptualize meaning found within spaces while also connecting listeners to imagined places.

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The emerging field of soundscape recording and composing has thus far focused almost exclusively on physical places save for Hildegard’s field-breaking soundscape called Kit’s Beach Soundwalk. A somewhat juxtaposed recording, Hildegard’s composition starts at Kits beach and then through a powerful orchestration of finely crafted sounds, leads the listener away from Kits beach to places of memory and meaning. These places might not be real to anyone but Hildegard and yet they are relatable. Or at least there is some relational understanding of what meaning they hold to the composer.

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It was Hildegard’s soundscape Kits Beach Soundwalk that inspired me to dig a little deeper into the intersection of physical places or memories of places with the imagined or internal spaces. This led me to questioning the boundaries and potential reach of a soundscape piece. Could the field of soundscaping breach the divide between one’s inner and outer reality? And if so, what would be the impact of that on the depth of human connection and understanding? Could this be the medium that allows us to truly connect to one another beyond the skin deep realities that so easily divide, disconnect and isolate us? What if we could communicate the essence of our inner soundscapes with each other?

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To find out, I adapted the techniques of recording a physical space to instead choreograph the keynotes, signals and soundmarks that together conceptualize a glimpse of my inner mindscape. The soundscape this produced, experiments with the boundaries of sound to bridge the divide between the places society deems real and inner spaces we can never physically reveal.  This soundscape is not from any one space. Nor is it tied to the memory of a place. Instead, it seeks to conceptualize the essence that makes up my internal mind space and share the reality of my mindscape.