Tell a story by sounds 

Our primary purpose of this mid-semester project is to bring out the idea that sounds are essential components of a prosperous city and investigate the connection between two types of artistic expression—soundscape and literature.

In daily life, we will only focus a little on the ambisonic sound around us as our ears and brain are already used to it. Therefore, we are trying to sort out the importance of sounds and hope to trigger a rethink of how sounds create a scene through this project. Before recording sounds in the city center, we read a poem called “Midday, Quarry Bay” by Hong Kong author Leung Ping Kwan. After reading it, we discovered that the sounds surrounding us are more than we think; Leung described many scenarios in his poem, like a car horn, people throwing a ball on the basketball court, and workers unloading commodities… Using eyes to see can construct these scenarios undoubtedly, but using ears to hear can also build these scenarios, paradoxically, sounds make the scene more abundant. Without listening, we would not get into the situation. 

When we listened to our recordings, we found some tracks that can help us rebuild the scene in our brain because that track contains a lot of sounds. For example, the ground construction sounds, tram running sounds, people passing by sounds, and the sound created by a seesaw moving upside down could tell us a story in the park. We do not need to see; we can know how lovely that moment is. Sounds made realistic presentations of a scene.

On the other hand, we tried to record sounds by following the scenarios Leung mentioned in his poem. We are impressed by this, as when we are recording, we feel like we became Leung at that moment, experiencing how busy Quarry Bay is. Afterward, we discussed this and concluded that sound significantly helps compose literature because sounds create a scene and capture its atmosphere.

We tried to use different audio equipment in this project, including Zoom h3-VR with ambisonic FuMa format and Stereo format by using the Zoom H4n recorders with Sennheiser MKH416 P48 Directional Gun Microphone.

Reference

香港記憶 | Hong Kong Memory.(n.d.). https://www.hkmemory.hk/MHK/collections/Yasi/all_items/prints/201607/t20160705_79915_cht.html