For this project I wanted to explore how different spaces affect the way we listen and experience our surroundings through sound. My essay research focuses on sound installation and spatial perception, so I wanted the practical work to connect directly to these ideas rather than becoming a separate project. This made me think more carefully about how the sound piece could explore listening as a way of experiencing space rather than simply documenting environments.
At first I was thinking about recording many different environments across London, including stations, churches, corridors and outdoor spaces. However, after testing some recordings, I realised that using too many locations made the piece feel more like a montage or sound documentary than a focused listening work. At one point I had almost six different locations layered into the timeline, but the transitions started feeling confusing rather than immersive.
Because of this, I decided to reduce the structure to three spaces: a private room, a corridor and an underpass. These spaces all have very different acoustic qualities and also suggest different forms of movement and behaviour. In the private room recordings, small sounds such as low electrical hums and distant pipes became surprisingly noticeable once I started listening more carefully.
I became interested in the idea that space is not only something visual, but something that can also be understood through listening. During the process I noticed that I started paying attention to everyday environments differently, especially quieter spaces that I would normally ignore. This project also made me question how much spatial experience is shaped through listening rather than visual observation.
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