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Hi all,

I am a researcher, doing my PhD from Q.U.T, Brisbane, [www.qut.edu.au] based in Delhi, India, at the moment conducting my field work.

In my PhD., I am exploring (very broadly stated) the relations between sound and space. I am interested in exploring the manner in which sonic cultures of a space influence interactions, spatially, with other spaces. In doing so, I am trying to bring forth the idea that sound, in the same vein as visuality/images, is an important cultural artifact of the city with its politics of production, circulation, articulation.

I am writing to this forum as I need creative suggestions as to how to explore these relations. One of the ideas I was planning to take forward was to play snippets of different sounds and ask people to comment on them, what they think of them, what space do they think they emanate from? Another question, for this purpose can I download some of the sounds from Free sound?

To situate the research in its context, the study is based in the a promiment slum settlements in Delhi. I have been working in the area for the last three years as part of a different project I was involved with earlier. Being located in the slum settlement, I am also interested in see how the power relations between the mainstream and the marginalized manifest themselves through sonic and thereby spatial cultures.

Any comments, any suggestions, any criticisms will be welcome and much appreciated.

regards
tripta

Hmm, I sense a great project here but I would like some more information in order to understand better what you are doing. Or, in terms of research, could you please define your independent and dependent variable(s)? I mean, you say you are exploring the relation between sound and space but I guess that you have ideas about the nature of these relations, right? Could you please explain some of your ideas? I think the creative suggestions will come up here for sure!

- LG

Maybe this is nonsense, as I don't fully grasp the rationale behind your project, but I see some risk of falling into circular reasoning. I mean, you have (consciuously or not) a preconception of what sounds mean to the people, then you expose subjects to this sounds, is this right? But in a way what you would be testing is not the meaning of sounds itself, but rather your idea of waht they *should* mean to the people?
Nah, forget what I said, without more info on the subject this is likely to be nonsense...

cheers

Javier

...but I see some risk of falling into circular reasoning.

Not that much nonsense, I felt the same. But perhaps tripta can explain more about what the project is about and that will clarify matters.

I too would like to know more detail. I suspect there is some correlation between sources of "noise pollution" and the use of the land that is exposed to this pollution. e.g. land that is near an airport or train tracks is generally not prime residential real estate. Where I live, there are heated debates over flight paths to and from the airport, due to the noise. We even have a permanent aircraft noise monitor (outdoor microphone connected to remote monitoring office) on our residential street.

However there are exceptions to this. e.g. many people can adapt to noise pollution. Our house is near the flight path from the local airport, and when we first moved there I didn't sleep much. But before long I didn't even notice the noise any more.

Tripta, some ideas and inroads: look into Structuralist writings and Semiotics theory. Looked it up in Anthony Giddens SOCIOLOGY: Quoting: "Any objects which we can systematically distinguish can be used to make meanings." You might also want to look into the Tartu School of Semiotics.

I guess some anthropology writings might also have bearing on your research object. Lévi-Strauss obviously comes to mind here.

Do you want to study sound or sound communities as such (sociographic study, sub culture ?) or do you want to study sound as conveyer of meaning? I used to be familiar with writings of Milton Yinger in the area of culture and sub culture. Maybe also the Frankfurt School to cover some aspects of the theoretical base. No doubt I am pushing in an open door here.

I like your idea of the slums as the focal point of your study. I am very convinced that music and sound play an important role in the establishment of identy and culture. I did not look into this but I am convinced a lot of research has been done on the significance of media in youth culture for instance.

Thanks, everyone, for the comments. I am in the initial, narrowing down, phase of my PhD and evidently there are many more relationship matrices that I am exploring than I can manage.

I will try and break down my research into its most important components, more for my benefit than for anyone else's. Please bear with me. I am not trying to establish an opinion but excavating the multiple possibilities of not only understanding things but also what the thing itself offers.

There are three main issues I am interested in/exploring for my PhD:

1) In what ways are the city landscapes defined, identified, approached and appropriated through their specific soundscapes?

(2) What are social, cultural and political legislations through which the categories of ‘noise’, ‘sound’ and ‘silence’ are constructed and consolidated in the city?

(3) In what ways do soundscapes provide the points of interactions (spatial, social, cultural, economical and political) between the mainstream and the marginalized, the city and the slums?

I reckon I should have included these main driving questions in the earlier post.

These research issues have emerged from the earlier research I conducted in the same space. The relations between sound and space and slums and the city, it emerged from the earlier research are contested and have to be constantly negotiated. On the premise that the slums dwellers are essentially squatters and do not have legal claims to the land, they are socially, culturally, economically, and politically discriminated. The generic opinion about the slums and slum dwellers, among the residents of the middle class settlements, which is also generously sustained by the media, is that it is a site of moral bankrupcy, all the residents are 'criminals', 'prostitutes', 'drug dealers'. The sort of conceptions that circulate for any marganilised, sub-culture group.

To elaborate through an example about the interaction of sound and space, the particular slum in question is next to a few middle class settlements. I am not sure how many of you, outside the third world Indian context, would be able to articulate it, however, in the Indian context, we have night long religious festivals called Jagrans. These are usually locally organized and involve sermons, chanting of varied kinds being played through the loudspeaker well till the early next morning. When such events are organized in the middle class settlements, they enjoy social, cultural and legal (though its illegal through the noise pollution acts) legetimacy. The same event in the slum invites the wrath of the residents from the nearby colonies/apartment blocks and police forces are deployed to shut them down on the pretext that they are being 'noisy' and 'disruptive'. Its not about the 'noise', per se, but where the noise is coming from that is an issue.

In that sense, sound is not an apolitical category, an ephemeral background element.

Also, it is important to keep in consideration the distinction between the western conception (and practice) of sound and sound regulation vis-à-vis the third world developing context. Within the western conception, sound is usually understood in terms of essentially private versus public space (Bull) or the regulation of Noise pollution (Schaffer). However, the sonic cultures in the third world developing context the sonic cultures cannot be understood through these frameworks, especially in the case of India. The culture in essence is loud, sonically, visually, and the boundaries between the private and public are not as well demarcated as in the west. These conditions specifically do not apply in the case of the slums.

Regarding dobroide's comment, I am consciously trying not to work with preconceived notions of the 'sound' means to the people, either of the slum settlements or outside of it, and I also consiously don't think, address the respondents/residents of the space as 'subjects' (this is a deliberate attempt to move away from the language of spectacle of the 'field sites', the 'subjects'). It is a collaborative research project where the residents exercise their matter of choice to involve in the project or not. Now that you have mentioned, my idea of taking 'sounds' from other contexts wasn't very well thought though. Maybe. My intent, in doing so, was to introduce sounds from different contexts (I am recording sounds from other spaces in Delhi, market places, malls, other slums, middle class settlements, public spaces) to initiate discussions around the kind of sounds, the imaginations they evoke (and why), who/what is probably 'producing' that sound and the possible factors which allow for such sounds or not. And what you said was not nonsensical because it made me think about my methodology, approach and the framing of the question.

Thanks, pcaeldries for the references. I have referred to some of them, especially Giddens and Strauss. I need to develop my knowledge of semiotics and the related fields.

I am aware that the issues mentioned (i have deliberately tried to keep it short hock are much more than a PhD can involve but its just the beginning and I am populating two lists on my wall: a) the issues which I will be able to deal with in my PhD and b) the concerns which I will undertake , post PhD, in my dream project.

Given the background, please give me suggestions/inputs how to further explore these relations (theoritically, creatively).

thanks.
tripta

Hello.

This is a very interesting subject quite related to my own work in the field of , let's say, arts.

You may know we did a mass recording for Freesound in Barcelona, with around 300 people. When we got the idea for that we were thinking on the political and social meaning of sound.
ear
I did other performances or however u want to call them, that involved sound in a similar way.

We have a sound art festival in Barcelona called Zeppelin. The edition of 2005 was about sound and control. If u knew spanish you would have a lot information here:

http://www.sonoscop.net/zeppelin2005/zeppelin2005.html#

I am going to speak my mind about the subject a bit, maybe it's useful to you.

Prolly in most cultures and human settlements one of the first things that adult society demands from growing children is to learn to shut up. Along with the control of the body, the control of the sound one produces is one of the requisites to be consideered an adult. Here in Barcelona i can often see people hiding to clean their noses and trying to not make too much noise when they do, the same with coughing.

Not only with age but also with social status it is the control of one's sound emisions related. At least here, the people with less (access to) institutionalized education are the most noisy. If you talk loud here they may tell you that u are like a (female) fish dealer, for example.

If you think with the ears in a place historically related to barcelona's high society like the Liceu theatre (Opera) u may notice that absolute silence is demanded among the people that is watching the show, that the show is really loud (opera voices), and that the cheapest zone, where the people of lower social status was placed, is called the "chicken coop".

The lack of sound coming from your body determinates your mental age, and the ammount of sound you can emit determinates your social status.

Making too much noise in the city of Barcelona and u will have to pay (so, money) a fine.

If u have enough money you can get the permissions to do a festival or a miting where lots of loud sounds are emited.

A megaphone is a symbol of dissidence, that is because you can make your voice be heard in a long distance in top of every other sound. If you use a megaphone it's because you can't appear on TV, radio or newspapers. It's dissidence because u can make a single voice be enough loud as to interfere with the meaning production of institutional or economical powers.

If you can amplify sound you can create meaning.

Think of police sirens.

Think of the voice in the train that tells you were you are and when you go or to not smoke.

Think of the voice in Off, or the voice of god (usually a voice in Off) in movies or theatre.

In new year's eve, here in the harbor of Barcelona, all the ships activated their xtremely loud, low sirens, they were going like that for around 15 minutes. Some where going off, then others were going on, then some came back, like a composition. In front of the hostel where i work, some people broke a bottle against the floor. I was screaming happy new year to the people at the beach.

Yeah, so, we scream and produce louds sound for celebrating. We produce more sound when we are happy, probably because we care less about rules and we are energetic. Loud voices are powerful.

Think of our mass recording.

Think of political repeating chants in a demostration.

Think of fake laughs or applauds in TV.

Sound is power. Sound can be a weapon.

In UK (if i recall correctly) they are testing on football matches a system to try to censor some chants (racist ones) in the stadiums. The system consists in some delays that would make impossible for the singers to follow the songs/chants by delaying them at various miliseconds and amplify the different delayed chants to different zones of the stadium.

Some thoughts about ur proposed methodology.

If you want to study the relations between people and the sounds around them, you should emit those sounds as they are normally emited. I would suggest, for example, if you can, that you get permission for a certain group of people to produce sound. For example, permission to make one of those parties u said were prohibited. To act directly in the space would provoke real reactions to real situations.

If you don't want to modify the sibject of study, you may just be there hunting those precious moments where this relations happen.

Well, just speaking my mind.

Hope it's useful.

All best.

Interesting, several ideas come to my mind reading Jaume:

- one sequence in The Simpsons were Bart chains 10-20 loudspeakers and says an enormous 'hello' which causes him to enter a military school (i.e. he needs discipline)
- that other sequence in Apocalypse Now, when Wagner music was used to complement bombing with napalm
- some nuns and monks take silence vows (maximum surrender to rules one can think of)
- 'botellonas' (street parties) in Spain: neighbours complain more about these being noisy that being dirty (although they are both
- the same neighbours never complain about noisy 'popular' events like Holy Week Processions (the catholic church is a powerful social force, they somehow 'own' the streets)
- among all musical formats I can think of, only rock and roll concerts are to a great extent based on huge volume levels (rebellion?)
-Howling Monkey families perform shouting 'concerts' to keep competitors away from their feeding trees
- I wasn't happy and calm in the place I live until I installed double-glassed windows which provide me nearly full isolation from external sonic interferences (yes, I need some control of my environment, who doesn't?). Generally speaking, to me a sound is beautiful only if it relates to the natural world (exception made of J Hendrix, God bless him . Quite understandable in a field biologist, isn't?

Obviously sound has deep implications in politics, sociology, psicology, biology... Yet I disagree with Jaume in the idea that sound *is* power: a symbol is just a symbol, not the thing it represents. Stronger and healthier Howling Monkeys might well be the noisier ones if both traits are genetically correlated (same can be said of a male lion or wahtever), but in the human world symbols are just...symbols.

Reading all these ideas and the explanation of tripta I have a few suggestions for literature. First of all, your ideas bear some resemblance to the work of Latour, Law et al. on Actor Network Theory. Perhaps you would like to explore that. ANT assumes that human actors and other objects (such as houses, roads, but also television programmes) are integrated in a network. Actants (all objects in the network) can exist because of the properties and workings of the other objects. For example: a sound engineer is only a sound engineer because his equipment allows him to. This also seems to converge with your stance against ‘subjects’ in field research. Latour and Law (the most prominent authors in this theory) are able to explain this much better than I do but I have the feeling that it could help you to structure the relation between the people, sounds, space and meaning. Introduction (but there is more):

§ Law, J. (1997). Topology and the naming of complexity. Lancaster, Centre for Science Studies Lancaster University: 10.

Secondly, your ideas are essentially about the multicausal between (urban) space, representations and societal developments, right? I feel that you could get more ideas from the work of David Byrne. He is an urban sociologist and although he has never written about the function of sound in the urban, he has written a lot of good and interesting articles and books about the multicausal relationship between the city, representations and societal developments. At least I feel there is a connection here, even though you will have to place ‘sound’ somewhere in this. I can recommend the following:

§ Uprichard, E. & Byrne, D. 2006. Representing Complex Places: A Narrative Approach. Environment and Planning A: Special Issue on Complexity and Space
§ Byrne, D. 2001. Understanding the Urban. Routledge
§ Byrne, D. 2001. What is Complexity Science? Thinking as a realist about measurement and cities and arguing for natural history. Emergence (US) 3(1): 61-76.

And if you want to know more about multicausality in this type of research, he has also written an excellent book about this:

§ Byrne, D. (199. Complexity theory and the social sciences. London, New York, Routledge.

As for the more practical approach to your research, I like the suggestion made by other users above. If I have more time I will try to think of more creative ideas.

Thanks, everyone, for the detailed comments. The effort undertaken by everyone is much appreciated.

Reading Plagasul's comments, in the context of my research, I began to ponder over the whole culture of un-hearing (for the want of a better word, I am just using this). In the case of Govindpuri, it is evident that only a certain section of the community (men and women) has the legitimacy to produce sound. Sound production and manipulation itself is a very politicized and deeply embedded within the local context. For instance, in a lot of households the women are not allowed to answer the phone. In that situation, when the phone rings and no male member is available to answer it, the women have to consciously un-hear those sounds. From a personal experience, as plagasul mentioned, control of sound as well as responding to certain sounds is a matter of cultural indoctrination and control. From the time when I started venturing out in the city alone, I was advised both by family and friends to ignore certain 'sounds' representing certain things. For instance, I was not to respond to the callings of men, those passing comments, or a fight breaking out. I had never given it much thought but now when I think about it, I realize that I consciously devised a system to un-hear these sounds. Similar experience happened to me when I was much older and on a vacation in Varanasi on my own. Walking around a lot of the locals mistook me for a 'forgeiner' and they would say things in hindi, which I obviously understood, which would not be very appealing to my sensibilities. Realizing my helpness to react back, by the third day I started to 'feel' like a forgiener consciously ignoring the language I have grown up with, I understand. By the fifth day, I no longer would actually 'understand' or 'articulate' what was being said. Through the process of un-hearing, I had made the native language forgien.

In that sense, I think sound is power. Or sound has the power to circulate, represent, and sustain certain symbols of power. The power is inherent in it.

Jacques Attali's, Noise: Political economy of Music, deals with issues regarding how music (sound) was employed to control the societies. Through legetimizing certain kind of compilation of sounds represented in their musical composition, a lot of other kinds of sound were rejected as Noise. Attributing music a critical role in the manner societies is consolidated, Attali vests power in Sound. Drawing from his implications, it can be suggested, within the framework of this research, that every sound is noise, which ‘is the source of power’. Organization of noise within certain socially, culturally, politically accepted permutation and combinations produced certain legitimate sound such as Music. However, outside this legitimate zone, every sound is noise and needs to be controlled regarding which he states:

Eavesdropping, censorship, recording, and surveillance are weapons of power…. To listen, to memorize-this is the ability to interpret and control history, to manipulate the culture of a people, to channel its violence and hopes.

Thanks, LG, for the references. I have been looking at Latour but these very direct references save me a lot of time! Much appreciated.

For the moment, to take my reserach further, I have developed two matrices: one to talk about space through sound and the other to talk about sound through space. I realize that I may be falling in the trap of looking for answers, which I have already established, but the format of the matrices is as such that all respondents add to the sounds and spaces as well as the categories of examination.

The categories in the sound matrices are very loosely articulated as:

a) Sound (listing the sound) b) Spaces, you would associate with these sounds and C) What does it make you feel

Some examples of sounds added by the respondents: Birds calling/chirping, Continuous honking, Whistle of the train

The categories in the space matrix are:
a) space b) Have you ever been to this place before c) Kinds of sound you imagine/have heard in this place d) Relation/ what does it make you feel

Some examples:
Outside the cinema hall
(at the snacks counter)
In a house in posh greater kailash colony
In the apartments of Kalkaji (or outside in the park)

Even these were suggested in discussion with the respondents. The category of 'relation' and 'how does it make you feel' evolved through the discussions, most of the respondents spoke about sound in terms of how it made them feel. The reactions vary from safe, angry, melancholic, energetic, etc. When I was asked to establish the relations, I also tended to answer it in terms relations.

I am holding on the idea of playing out sounds for a later phase in the research. These matrices are allowing me to have intense, free flowing conversations about sound more than anything else. Also, in reading some of the responses I am struck by the fact that there is a clear distinction between social, religious, commercial, secular sound. However, need to investigate that in detail.

I will update on my research for further comments. Till then, any ideas, criticisms, please inform me. These discussions help me in more ways than I anticipated.

regards
tripta

Wow, lots of fascinating ideas being discused in this thread. I've only recently been introduced to the study of semiotics in the context of images and connotations that pertain to cultural myths.
I attended a lecture on photography that dealt with semiotics, but I'm sure that the concepts can be applied to sound as well.
Certain sounds can even invoke a pavlovian response (as the bell did for pavlov's dogs in his inital study)...

The culturally-mandated responses to sound truly do vary... for instance, natural sounds that the body makes such as burps and farts cause some people to laugh, or others to feel embarrased and/or offended depending on the situation.

It's also interesting how the human brain acts as an adaptive filter for sounds, visuals, etc.

You may find the Ear to the earth thread interesting.
The tag from that thread has some interesting recordings. I'll leave you with some links to listen to, perhaps they will spark some ideas:

http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=28357 "people praying in the church in Collobrieres France"
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=17307 "Rush hour in Morocco is in full swing when the Prayer Call sounds from a local mosque."
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=28383 "a young acolyte is practising the afternoon "ezan" (call to prayer) amid the busy hustle and bustle of the city [of Sanliurfa]"
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=14308 "A Baha'i prayer in Farsi"
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=28282 Prayer from Ayvalık, Turkey

http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=19043 football fans going crazy at "font de canaletes" in Barcelona

http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=21137 A short recording I made of muted conversation before a theater performance
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=21136 A short recording I made of people shifting and trying to stay quiet during a theater performance
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=28103 A very long and nice recording of an american coffee house, audible conversations
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=4999 NoiseCollector as a kid, singing as only a child can

Sounds with particular connotations:
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=28426 itialian police siren
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=26273 old fire truck siren
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=15430 dutch ambulance- quite unique

And lastly, don't forget to check out the wonderful caixa forum recordings:
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/packsViewSingle.php?id=1277 seven people
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/packsViewSingle.php?id=1563 three hundred!