1. Were you able to find places and spaces where you could really listen? I was able to find certain places where Icould hear things clearly, but usually it was too windy, or the room was too big and produced echoes that muddied out the sound.
2. Was it possible to move without making a sound? Actually, yes. I was able to move pretty well without making sounds. I've always been a person who would try to walk quietly, and it seems like it has paid off for this task!
3. What happened when you plugged your ears, and then unplugged them? It was basically like I was hearing through a low-pass filter. I wasn't able to clearly hear higher frequency sounds, but the bass frequencies were more noticeable.
4. 4. Were you able to differentiate between sounds that had a recognizable source and those sounds you could not place? Sort of. When we were in the Union it was a lot harder to hear where individual sounds were coming from because of the reverberation, but when we were outside, where the sound dissipated quickly, I could easily tell where different sounds originated.
5. Were you able to differentiate human, mechanical, and natural sounds? It was pretty simple to differentiate between these sound sources because almost all of the human sounds were talking, the mechanical sounds were beeps or clicks, and the natural sound was basically just the wind.
6. Were you able to detect subtleties, changes, or variations in the everpresent drone? Not so much in the Union as I could outside. Outside the wind is always changing, and thus creates a different soundscape every few seconds. Inside of the Union, where sounds reverberate for much longer, there wasn't much of a difference between two separate points of time.
7. Extremely close sounds? Sounds coming from very far away? I wasn't able to hear sounds that came from far away, mostly because the closer sounds were too loud, and drowned out the distant sounds. I was able to hear farther sounds when I plugged my ears since the bass frequencies were able to travel longer.
8. Were you able to intervene in the urban landscape and create your own sounds by knocking on a resonant piece of metal, activating wind chimes, etc.? Unfortunately I was not able to intervene, but I liked that because it was a more real experience of what someone would hear. By creating my own sounds I would be tampering with what sounds are naturally occurring around me, and in the soundscape of Milwaukee.
9. Do you feel you have a new understanding or appreciation of the sounds of our contemporary landscape/cityscape? Actually, yes. Where I live, I am not able to hear all of the same sounds that I am able to while down here. We don't have too much traffic in Sussex, nor do we have as many people walking around.
10. How do you think your soundwalk experience will affect your practice as a media artist, if at all? This experience will give me more experience in what sounds I believe will help bring a piece of work to the next level, and it also gives me more field experience too!
