Sound, as an Ambiguous Medium
In general we feel more secure when things are visible, when we can "see for ourselves." (McLuhan 117).
I agree with McLuhan, in that sight gives the mind a sort of comfort that sound isn't capable of. I would argue from an evolutionary perspective that sight is more important, being able to see a predator from a few hundreds yards away, as opposed to hearing, when it's already close. This leaves sound in a sort of an ambiguous sideline, an important one no doubt, but almost aways second to the input of picture.
To follow this theme, sound as an ambiguous medium, I have created a suspenseful one minute soundscape. I made an effort not to make music but to study sound in a different context. I found it quite interesting that through out this process I aways associate this audio with a made up image, or imagine it was created for a movie. It is quite telling that it is difficult for me to accept this piece audio as complete, and perhaps that bias is enforced by todays popular culture not making space for stand alone one minute audios.
Regardless I have added a visual map of this project to help comfort the brain.
I made this in Ableton. The bottom three blue tracks are the sound effects while the rest are some form of pad synth sound. The sounds themselves are a mixture of audio plugins and free samples online. From a blank slate I started with one synth, attempting to map the energy of each section, and from there kept adding tracks.
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