In this week’s workshop, we started by discussing Figure, Ground and Field sounds, picking up from the reading. We looked at some photos, and categories the sounds one would hear in those situations into the three categories. What we ended up realising is that… it really depends. Most importantly, in media products such as podcasts, which sounds go into which layers can be easily manipulated by the media practitioner to guide the attention of the listener. A conversation could be the figure, or the announcements, or the sound of the train, each resulting in totally different effects – a conversation you are engaged in being totally muffled by the sound of a train arriving could be disorientating and terrifying.
We went on to listen to a podcast about lobotomies. I found it engaging and interesting. I enjoyed the pacing – words were being said so consistently that seemed like pauses were being taken out, and the pacing remained incredibly consistent throughout the piece. With regards to the structure, I found it very engaging that the effect of the lobotomy on the narrator was not revealed for so long – I felt like I needed to know this to understand the story, and I expected it early on. After hearing horror stories, I was quite confused as to how the narrator seemed to be so well functioning. Only at the end did he give an answer to this question, in the form of saying something was “always missing” and that he was “always suffering”. I found this unsatisfying from a narrative point of view as it was so vague, but it had the effect of conveying that the narrator himself did not fully understand it – he only understood bits and pieces that he had picked up through his research.
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