Surprised with my resistance to Jessica Barnes’ artist statement, which I read after exploring her soundmap for quite some time. I didn’t appreciate being told what my experience was. I didn’t appreciate being told what “the user learns.” And I want to say that as a user I never learned “to use the space heuristically.” Perhaps I just used the space heuristically because that’s what we do with designed spaces. Humans are “form seeking animals,” as Berthoff likes to say. My experience with Barnes’ art space/soundscape enacts this for me. I found myself noticing patterns, rhythms in this case, stacking sounds in different patterns to satisfy a layering that felt fitted. The visuals, interestingly, enhanced in their spareness; I barely noticed them. Rather I noticed a genre–a kind of steampunk tonality to the textures and visuals.
You are here: Home / Archives for soundscapes