Making Noise, Making Sound? Impact Outcomes
Making Noise, Making Sound?
Students in the Making Noise, Making Sound? Lab partnered with faculty from the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts and the School of International Letters and Cultures to investigate the concept and practice of noise. The Lab conducted research and worked in soundscapes, interactive and multisensory experiences primarily steeped in sound and noise, in addition to generating playable, annotated soundmaps of the ASU campus.
Lab Activites
Lab faculty orchestrated an abundance of sound experiences to provide a 360-degree view of auditory perceptions from across disciplines and boundaries. Lab collaborative guests ranged from Scottsdale Sound Sanctuary's resident 'gongster' Lisa Lippincott creating a sound bath for students with gongs to national composer Joseph Clayton Mills sharing sound relics of seasons past and renowned noise artist and composer Luciano Chessa. See below for a complete list of Lab collaborators and thought partners.
Student Outcomes
Day In The Life Narrative
Have you ever thought about the cacophony of sounds that make up the football experience? There are the sounds and noise of weights clanging in the weight room, to the grunts/shouts/crashing of helmets during practice and the eventual sound of the roaring crowd upon entering the stadium. A team of students with a particular interest in football focused their work around narrating the experience of Arizona State football players' day-to-day experiences. Each activity is captured in detail articulating the essence of a menagerie of audibles under the lens of their Lab research. View the report here.
Interactive Globe
Taking a global approach, another team took aim at creating an analog-digital interactive globe of a fictional world where invited participants were able to press a button on their hand-made globe to hear the soundscape of each pinned location. Guests were then asked to determine the source of each sound, which... was harder than it sounds.
Upon exploring the expectations of sounds, noise, and potential sound and noisescapes within their fictional world which was loosely inspired by post-apocalyptic movie media, such as those depicting zombie apocalypses or widespread diseases. The team focused on creating an immersive experience for their audience demonstrating auditory learning on a deeper level. View their report here.
Auscultation Hallucination
This student-led project took a focus of merging auditory and visual inputs within virtual reality, taking inspiration from Jonathan Sterne's The Audible Past. Sterne has emphasized the significance of the aural senses, often overshadowed by visual dominance. By adopting a third-person perspective, the outcome highlights the importance of sound in enhancing virtual reality experiences. Through careful integration of sound design and visuals, participants interacting with the students' work explore a multisensory environment, immersing themselves in the fictional world. This final outcome approach sought to create a more immersive experience, enriching sensory perception and encouraging deeper engagement with sound. View their report here.
Project the Unexpected
Another team project, named "Project the Unexpected," consisted in a digital glitch art exhibition that aimed to provide the audience with the opportunity to create self-portraits through music and visual art. Drawing inspiration from renowned digital glitch artists Yovozol and Tachyons+, who specialize in glitch art and sell their works online, the project sought to emulate their aesthetic while allowing participants to express themselves freely. View their outcome here.
The Sound of the Landscape
Working to incorporate music and visuals to engage their audience and keep their minds actively thinking, the Sound of the Landscape team leveraged recorded video footage from various locations in Utah and Colorado as the foundation for their outcome. Each recording offered varying landscapes and visuals. Their audience experienced the project through virtual reality (VR), where the video recordings were inserted into the VR experience and paired with audio. The original audio was replaced with sound recordings of the duo playing their own music using a trumpet. Despite the mismatch between the music and visuals in each location, the student team believed that their audience would still be able to make connections. Through the engaging VR experience, the project aimed to promote active listening and emphasize the significance of being aware of one's surroundings, both visually and acoustically. View the report here.
Sparky's Sonic Shootout
A team called Sparky's Sonic Shootout designed a sound project with a sports focus on basketball. They created a sound map that showcases the auditory landscape of an ASU basketball game emphasizing perceived stressing or enthusing sounds. The outcome focused on providing an interactive and immersive experience for their audience. By recording various basketball games at ASU, they captured a diverse range of sounds, including crowd cheers, game-related sounds, and background music. These sounds were meticulously organized on a map resembling a basketball court to create a realistic representation. Utilizing a MIDI controller, the students were able to control and manipulate the sounds, enhancing the interactive aspect of the project. Sound effects were also incorporated to further enrich the audience's experience. View the outcome here.
Impact Outcome Showcase
Students and faculty (Kimberly Marshall and Serena Ferrando) from the Making Noise, Making Sound? Lab held a final showcase event available to the public to culminate their semester of work with sound and noise. Attendees were invited to immerse themselves in the student-led sound and noise experiences of their final outcomes.The event was held Tuesday, April 25th at the School of Music, Cowley Lobby from 3:30 - 4:30 pm and then immediately following in the VR Room at Hayden Library (3rd floor) from 5.00 - 5.30 pm to a furthered showcase of the cutting-edge research in music, sound, and technology.
Below are the posters that guided guests to the interactive sound experiences.
Here are a few images of the students and their impact outcomes at the Impact Outcome Showcase.
My most valued experience in the Lab was exploring how we define noise versus sound because it is ultimately a question of subjectivity. What I may define as a pleasant sound, another may define as an annoying noise. This exploration opened up how important perspective, experience, and subjectivity are in how we view and interact with the world around us.
-- Gwyn Lederman, Making Noise, Making Sound? Humanities Lab student
Collaborative Partners
- Garth Paine, Associate Professor, Composer, Scholar and Acoustic Ecologist, ASU School of Arts, Media
and Engineering
- Joseph Clayton Mills, Sound Artist and Composer
- Lisa Lippincott, Scottsdale Sound Sanctuary
- Luciano Chessa, Composer, Conductor, Audiovisual and Performance Artist, and Music Historian
- Michael Compitello, Professor of Percussion, ASU School of Music, Dance and Theatre
- Sabine Feisst, Professor of Musicology, ASU School of Music
- Simone Mancuso, Faculty Associate of Percussion, ASU School of Music, Dance and Theatre
- Seonaid Valiant, Assistant Archivist, Distinctive Collections, ASU Libraries