The Sonic Environment

1. Identify the article you have selected and why you chose it.
I was intrigued by the title “Listening to myself Listen” and thought the information would be new and pertinent to this assignment. I have never really considered that there is an art in listening. Who would really think of listening to themselves listen and this is actually an art.


2. What are the main points of the essay?
The main idea of this article is the complexity of our sound environment which is referred to Sonic Environment. The term sonic refers to how fast and intense something can move. In this article it makes me aware of how fast sounds are projected towards us in our everyday environment and we ignore it, or passes without our noticing. There are no natural sounds but also man-made sounds. What we listen to is determined by our culture/ society, our gender and our experience. It is also driven by our reason for listening (eg. One example given in the article, is a piano tuner listening to the keys on a piano).

3. How are the ideas or arguments in this article relevant to your own practice as a media artist?
A very important part of my experiences as a media artist is to pay close attention to ethnology. I am learning that I need to examine the sonic environment, and adjust my sounds to gender, age, culture, mental state, physical state, the psychic space and intellectual knowledge. How my audience listens is going to effect the way I produce sound and as well as their viewing experience and interpretations. For example, a female listening to a specific sound or song, may have a different experience than a male who is also listening to that sound or song.