Latest News

Hello fellow bloggers,

Here is the most recent update to my Trek exercises I have been doing. Take a look and please feel free to leave me comments.

My Dream House

This is a more developed idea of the previous Forbidden House idea. I want to really work out an idea of this abandoned way of life in the country and this push towards urbanization. I think that we can have all the benefits of advancement in culture without fully abandoning a way of simpler living.

Watch the Video.

Elusive, Dream, Tree

This peice is a rough cut of a piece that I am working on. I am trying to sybbolize a way to return to the simplicity of life and a tree was fitting for this expereince. I think I will use it in conjuncture with my next House piece.

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Save the trees!!!

This is a recording of an electric hand dryer. After my restroom break at a gas station on my trek I thought "Oh what the heck, I'll put em in here" I think I might have damaged the mics a little though. The result was really loud so I edited it down and added some resonance to give it a cool effect.

Listen...

Peace and Quiet

A peaceful and inviting sound scape. A nice change to juxtapose in a piece.

Listen...

Traffic!!!

This is meant to annoy and be an abrupt sound for the listener. I want them to feel uncomfortable and with its loudness and think do we need this chaos in our society.

Listen...

Loud Crowd

This is a recording of a large crowd of people just talking, I was thinking of having it symbolize the loudness and confusion that we layer on in our lives.

Listen...

Babbling Brook

This was the stream that was next to my fence. I was thinking of adding this to that piece.

Listen...

Walking by a Fence

This was just a fence I came across on my latest trek that I found had a cool color and feel next to the stream. I am still thinking how I can fit this in. Any Ideas? Feel free to comment.

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City Ordinance

This clip will most likely accompany other clips and pictures of my subjective society theory piece.

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A Forbidden House 2?

This clip goes along with the first Forbidden House post. Just some more angles to work with.

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A Forbidden House?

This video I was thinking of using for a piece on returning to the simpler ways of life. This caution blocker had a complimentary effect on my idea.

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Traffic for thuoght

I am wondering about adding this sequence, or part of it to a larger sequence to establish the space where we are. It will go with my subjective piece.

Watch the Video.

Project 3 Video, Light Capturing Trek (November 13, 2006)

Setting number 1: The first setting that I want to get is the fronteir life and the simple qualities of nature invloved with living.

Setting number 2: The second is a little abstract, I don't want to get new and urban homes, but rather the consumer aspect and the govermental rules that we are forced to witness everyday.

Production Stretegy number 1: Pictures taken, of one house, but change the aperture every time.

Production Strategy number 2: Pictures taken where the viewer is in a subjective standpoint.

Project 3 Video, Sound Trek (November 12, 2006)

Soundscape number 1: I hope to be able to encounter a very peaceful and traffic free area to collect sound from. I want to juxtapose crazy suburban sprawl with quiet frontier life. It's a dying breed of life and we should not be so quick to accept the rules and consumerism displayed for us daily.

Soundscape number 2: I want to capture a loud and abrupt difference between the quiet and calm nature of fronteir life, with the fast and uncarring sounds of surburban sprawl.

Ten Curiosities

1. Where is the quietest place in the region?

2. Being a mostly residential area, are there any places that don’t have many people walking around in it.

3. Are there any areas where homeless people congregate?

4. Can I capture the difference between urban life and suburbia life?

5. Can county line road be the busiest road in my trek area.

6. Will I ever venture out of the nature areas of the trek zone?

7. Is there a sound difference between daytime and night time, in the exact same place.

8. Can the urbanization of the two communities, Germantown and Menomonee Falls, lead to even more interesting soundscapes.

9. How does the interstate affect the driving patterns of the residents of each community?

10. How do businesses function in the beauty of the landscape?

September 23, Spassland Park Pavilion, An Experience I've had along the way.

My recalled place

The place where I recorded sound today was underneath the Spassland Park Pavilion. Spassland Park is located in Germantown, Wisconsin. The specific place that I want to talk about is in the middle section of the pavilion, north side of it facing out. It was drizzling just outside the boundary of the pavilion, and there was a cold breeze blowing that was wet with moisture from the air. Although there were no raindrops hitting my face the wind brought enough of this moisture to me that it started to collect on my glasses. I was standing, hunched, over a garbage can that was hanging slightly outside of the cover of the pavilion. There was some garbage in the can, not even half full, but there was enough garbage in the can to create interesting sounds. The garbage ranged from soda bottles from the soda machine at the other side of the pavilion, to Macdonald’s bags. There was also some bags from my place of employment; Cousins Subs. It was strange to see this item in a garbage can since I usually see it in the hands of the customers I help. The rain left soft impressions in the garbage and the sound had a unique resonating chamber in the structure of the garbage can. The can was old and rusted and had a hole on the one side, which I believe added even more resonance to the sound. As I listened to the pitter-patter of the rain on this garbage, I became aware of a person walking in from the west side of the park. He was heading toward the parking lot and his car. He noticed me and just continued on his way, getting into his car and leaving. It struck me that he had no idea what I was doing. He didn’t know if I drunk hanging over a garbage can loosing my dinner, or homeless looking for some soggy scraps of left-overs. I suddenly became aware of myself in the space when he entered my vision. Before I had been only aware of the sound I was hearing in my headphones. This man had taken me out of my concentration and distracted me from my work, leaving me with thoughts of insecurity about being hunched over a garbage can. I’m sure that he didn’t care why I was there; maybe he did and wanted to know if Germantown had a vagrant problem. I don’t know his thoughts, I only know mine. I wanted to have a sign up around me saying “Sound Recording In Progress” just so he wouldn’t think I was homeless. I have a very good image of myself and I do not want that tainted. This may sound pious and pretentious, but we all have our reservations about ourselves and if we can realize this than we can either fix it, or learn to judge accordingly. My greatest curiosity would have to be what that man was thinking as he was walking towards his car. Was he worried about being asked for money, was he thinking how his community should crack down on the homeless, just what was he thinking?

Trek 3 Area

Google Maps View

Spassland Park is where I focused on trek 1, and the surrounding area to the southwest of Spassland is where my trek 2 time was spent. For my third trek I believe that I will try to utilize the balance of urban and natural landscapes that my trek area has to offer.