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Perceiving the environment through sound
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Perceiving the environment through sound
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Content
PERCEIVING THE ENVIRONMENT
THROUGH SOUND
by
Chih-Wei Chao
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSKI SCHOOL OF ART AND DESIGN
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
(DESIGN)
May 2021
Copyright 2021 Chih-Wei Chao
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ iii
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv
Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 2: Sound and Environment ................................................................................................ 3
2.1 Soundscape ....................................................................................................... 3
2.2 Current Design Responses to Environment ...................................................... 5
2.2.1 Sound Map (2D) ................................................................................ 5
2.2.2 Noise Chair (3D) ................................................................................ 6
2.3 Research Questions ........................................................................................... 7
Chapter 3: Auditory Exploration through Collection and Manipulation ........................................ 9
3.1 Method overview: Case Study and Designing with Data ................................. 9
3.2 Collection of Data ........................................................................................... 10
3.3 Manipulation of Data ...................................................................................... 12
3.3.1 Meaning of Data .............................................................................. 12
3.3.2 Designing with Data ........................................................................ 12
3.3.3 Redefine Data into Colors ................................................................ 13
Chapter 4. Case Studies ................................................................................................................ 14
4.1 Case Study 1: SCENE VOLUME................................................................... 14
4.1.1 Background and Planning ........................................................... 14
4.1.2 Data Collection ........................................................................... 15
4.1.3 Data Manipulation....................................................................... 16
4.2 Case study 2: LISTEN THIS WAY ............................................................... 19
4.2.1 Background and Planning ................................................................ 19
4.2.2 Data Collection ................................................................................ 21
4.2.3 Data Manipulation ........................................................................... 21
4.3 Case Study 3: WALKING THROUGH THE HABITAT .............................. 24
4.3.1 Background and Planning ........................................................... 24
4.3.2 Data Collection ........................................................................... 25
4.3.3 Data Manipulation....................................................................... 26
Chapter 5: Conclusion................................................................................................................... 28
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 29
iii
List of Figures
Figure 1 Nature Sound Map, by Wild Ambience ............................................................................ 5
Figure 2 London Sound Survey, by Ian Rawes ............................................................................... 6
Figure 3 Giraffe Chair, by Lina Bo Bardi, Marcelo Ferraz and Marcelo Suzuki, 2012 ................. 7
Figure 4 Designing with Data, by Rochelle King, Elizabeth F Churchill, and Caitlin Tan .......... 10
Figure 5 List of Recordings ...........................................................................................................11
Figure 6 Three Phases of Experimenting with Data, by King, Churchill, and Tan ...................... 13
Figure 7 Sound Walk Map ............................................................................................................ 15
Figure 8 Notes from Sound Walk, by Chih-Wei Chao, 2020 ........................................................ 16
Figure 9 Screenshot from Scene V olume, by Chih-Wei Chao, 2020 ............................................ 18
Figure 10 Screenshot from Scene V olume, by Chih-Wei Chao, 2020 .......................................... 18
Figure 11 Screenshot from Scene V olume, by Chih-Wei Chao, 2020 .......................................... 18
Figure 12 Map of Six Parks .......................................................................................................... 20
Figure 13 Photos of Six Parks ....................................................................................................... 21
Figure 14 Screenshot of Listen This Way, by Chih-Wei Chao, 2020 ........................................... 23
Figure 15 Geometries Generated by Sounds (left) and Photos of Six Parks (right), by Chih-Wei
Chao, 2020 .................................................................................................................................... 23
Figure 16 Location of Hoover Street ............................................................................................ 24
Figure 17 Photo of The Recording Spot ....................................................................................... 25
Figure 18 Five Weeks Soundscapes, by Chih-Wei Chao, 2020 .................................................... 26
Figure 19 Screenshots of The Interactive Website, Walking Through The Habitat, by Chih-Wei
Chao, 2020 .................................................................................................................................... 27
iv
Abstract
In our ocular-centric, fast-paced and media-driven world, we experience sensory overload
that alters “the way we think and act – the way we perceive the world.”
1
This thesis takes urban
areas in Los Angeles (LA) as case studies for auditory explorations. I record the information of
the environment through notetaking, sketching, and sound-recording in order to compose a
database. These data are then translated to drive graphic patterns in Virtual Reality (VR), motions
of 3D geometries and an interactive website that makes urban ecology perceivable through our
sensory faculties. My aim is to enable users to experience new ways of seeing and understanding
environments.
Keywords: storytelling, data visualization, sonic interaction design, experiencing design, urban
ecology
1
McLuhan, M., Fiore, Q., & Agel, J. (2008). The medium is the massage (p.41). London: Penguin Books.
1
Chapter 1: Introduction
In the information age, we rarely slow down on our paths and we miss the simple pleasures
in our connection to nature and the human-made environment. At the same time, we are also too
busy to notice the weight of how we live and its impact of the environment. My thesis examines
this condition and its consequences.
“Urban areas are mosaics,” the landscape ecologist Richard T. T. Forman says in Urban
Ecology: Science of Cities.
2
He posits that the environment is complex and diverse, including
visible and invisible components that are moving and flowing in space and changing over time.
3
Contemporary cities are expanding rapidly in complex and non-linear ways. Urbanization brings
with it a profound impact on biodiversity and ecosystems. As an example, high-density populations
and buildings reduce natural animal habitats and the expansion of built environments increases the
rate of carbon emission.
4
Human appropriation of natural resources precipitates species extinctions
and global climate change.
5
As a result,
the whole ecosystem becomes unbalanced. My study of
literature on ecology and urbanism inspired me to uncover invisible environmental issues and
urban ecologies that typically go unnoticed by urban dwellers.
French cultural theorist and urbanist Paul Virilio suggests that although “speed” allowed
us to move fast, it also compressed our sense of seeing and hearing, affected our perception of
space and limited our imagination of the world.
6
He also believes that technological innovation
created faster transmission and communication, but it led to a reduction in people’s lived
2
Forman, R. T. (2016). Urban ecology: science of cities(p.3). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3
Ibid.
4
Ramalho, C. E., & Hobbs, R. J. (2012). Time for a change: Dynamic urban ecology. Trends in Ecology &
Evolution, 27(3), 179-188. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2011.10.008
5
Vitousek, P. M., Ehrlich, P. R., Ehrlich, A. H., & Matson, P. A. (1986). Human Appropriation of the Products of
Photosynthesis. BioScience, 36(6), 368-373. doi:10.2307/1310258
6
Virilio, P., & Rose, J. (2008). Open sky. London: Verso. / Virilio, P. (2012). Lost dimension (p.25 & P.35). New york,
NY: Semiotext(e).
2
experience.
7
Our transition from a static society into a dynamic society shaped by “speed” has
deeply changed the patterns of thought and lifestyles of the human race. I would therefore like to
bring into our awareness the subtle forces that shape our everyday experiences.
What does it mean to perceive in such an environment? Our brain reacts to stimuli that
trigger sensory reflexes to the changing environment. These include background noise and white
noise to which we seldom pay attention. With the goal of enabling an improved human experience
of the environment, this research involves exploring, recording, and representing the sensory
ecologies within urban environments.
7
Virilio, P., & Degener, M. (2008). Negative horizon: An essay in dromoscopy (p.10). London: Continuum.
3
Chapter 2: Sound and Environment
This chapter reviews how contemporary practitioners have used sounds to respond to the
environment. I start by exploring the possibilities of presenting environmental interpretations of
soundscape across a range of urban localities, sensory studies, and sound visualizations.
Additionally, I feature several current designs as examples that respond to the environment in order
to investigate their approaches, concepts, and outcomes. I then assess the opportunities and
possibilities of visualizing sounds through different mediums within design to recalibrate sensory
ecology.
2.1 Soundscape
The Canadian composer and environmentalist R. Murray Schafer theorized the word
“soundscape” in his book, The Soundscape, arguing that “Touch is the most personal of the senses.
Hearing is a way of touching at a distance.”
8
While people are accustomed to prioritizing seeing
the urbanscape, there are many other sensorial ways of experiencing the city. The soundscape is
one medium. The soundscape is like an acoustic fingerprint that represents identities, a place and
a situation that have their own recognizable and distinctive soundwaves.
When we move from "hearing" to "listening", we consciously direct our ears to pay
attention to the surroundings in which our lives are situated. When hearing, the individual and the
environment may be subversively connected to reconstruct a unique cognition of spatial structure.
Then, new discoveries and feelings can refine their understanding of the world from the listening
experience. Soundscapes and visual images coexist and complement each other, making the
impression of space closer to a real sensory experience.
8
Schafer, R. M. (1993). The soundscape: The tuning of the world. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books.
4
An urban environmental composition, A Walk through the City, was created by the
Canadian composer Hildegard Westerkamp in 1981, who drew from the Canadian writer Norbert
Ruebsaat’s poem of the same name.
9
With its unique language and sound, “instruments” in this
song include: car horns, brakes, police sirens, airplanes, construction sounds, the passing of trains,
and people reading the poem. It leads the audience into a specific urban space, the skid row area
of Vancouver B.C.
10
This work creates soundscapes for people to traverse the recognizable places
within their imaginations.
Michael Southworth, professor emeritus of Urban Design at UC Berkeley, developed a
theory about the “environment’s landmark” based on the concept of cognitive measures drawn
from urban planner Kevin Lynch’s book, The Image of the City.
11
Southworth also proposed the
intensive correlation between "sound" and "environment". What the soundscape proposes is the
relationship between the point and the surface, the surface and the time axis, and the cultural and
emotional.
That sounds are place-related has been written about in the disciplines including the arts,
design, urban planning, and architecture and on through sensory studies. Based on the particular
field of research, it may be embodied, experiential and immersive and seen as a method for people
to understand the environment. This appreciation of a variety of concepts informs how a
soundscape might be experienced in different ways. For design practice, there is a chance to draw
attention by combining the transient sounds happening in an everyday environment into forms or
layouts that indicate a series of movements in space and time.
9
A Walk Through the City. Retrieved from https://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/sound/comp/3/walkcity/
10
Ibid.
11
Lynch, K. (1964). The image of the city. Cambridge, MA: MIT Pr.
5
2.2 Current Design Responses to Environment
2.2.1 Sound Map (2D)
A map is a miniaturized depiction of the real world. Designer Manuel Lima suggests that
although maps are considered methods for displaying abstract concepts and imaginary realms, the
root of maps should be built on the features of the natural world.
12
Laurene Vaughan’s argument
states that mapping takes us to places we have never been and makes the imagination real.
13
Nature
Sound Map (Figure 1)
14
, for example, was made mainly from recorded sounds of nature for
audiences to acquire the details of different locations. I was fascinated by this sound map which
provides non-visual information, sound data, to help user immersion in the natural space.
Figure 1 Nature Sound Map, by Wild Ambience
Maps have the powerful function of visualizing spatial ideas and describing multiple
scenarios.
15
For example, the London Sound Survey (Figure 2)
16
, which collects the voices and
12
Lima, M. (2013). Visual complexity: Mapping patterns of information(p.80). New York: Princeton Architectural
Press.
13
Vaughan L. (2011) Mapping the Imagined. In Kriz K., Cartwright W., Hurni L. (eds) Mapping Different
Geographies. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-
642-15537-6_6
14
Hear the world like never before. Retrieved from https://www.naturesoundmap.com/
15
Dodge, M., Aitken, S. (Ed.), & Valentine, G. (Ed.) (2014). Mapping and geovisualization. In Approaches to Human
Geography, Second Edition (2nd ed., pp. 289-309). Sage Publications
Ltd. http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/m.dodge/Approaches-chapter1.pdf
16
The London Sound Survey featuring London maps, sound ... Retrieved from https://www.soundsurvey.org.uk/
6
sounds of London, separates the sounds into different categories based on themes and activities. It
also provides many historical references to help audiences understand how the sounds of London
have changed and evolved in modern times. This mapping method has motivated me to research
ways of presenting data from the environment to tell stories about the environment.
Figure 2 London Sound Survey, by Ian Rawes
2.2.2 Noise Chair (3D)
The designers Lina Bo Bardi, Marcelo Ferraz and Marcelo Suzuki made the Giraffe chair
(Figure 3) digitally with a 3D printer in order to make urban environments understandable and
touchable.
17
The designers utilized audio files collected from Santa Ifigênia Street in downtown
Sao Paulo that include environmental sounds that represented the city’s soundscapes, including
noise, which Bardi, Ferraz, and Suzuki called “city voices”. The designers played with the interface
of the chair to enable audiences to touch and feel the texture made by environmental sounds and
noise. This creative method inspired me to utilize acoustic information from the environment for
engaging human sensory perceptions.
17
Estudio Guto Requena - En - noize. Retrieved from https://en.gutorequena.com/noize-en/
7
Figure 3 Giraffe Chair, by Lina Bo Bardi, Marcelo Ferraz and Marcelo Suzuki, 2012
2.3 Research Questions
The review of historical and contemporary practices related to sound and the environment
displays a range of motivations, perspectives, methods and forms, including researching the
environment in methodological and artistic ways to develop auditory awareness. There is a role
for design practice to develop creative, performative, multimodal approaches to explore multiple
subjective viewpoints for understanding auditory space.
Despite the fact that a “soundscape” is understood to be collectively perceived, it remains
optically invisible and under-recognizable. Color, iconography and shape can be developed to
create a visual language that evokes storytelling about the auditory landscape. How would sonic
data be spatialized into a soundscape with its temporal sequences? Which types of practices could
be used to visualize the recordings and the resulting soundscapes into perceivable forms? In
response to these questions, my research asks:
8
How could we experience sounds and notice urban ecology in optically visible ways?
To tackle this question, I address two secondary questions:
1. Which visualization practices and formats best reflect the ephemerality of sounds and
the uniqueness of soundscapes?
2. Can soundscapes be used as a metric for measuring environmental issues?
I seek ways of rendering the soundscape as optically visible through various media such as a series
of motion graphics, an interactive website, and an immersive experience.
After examining how scholars have theorized and represented the soundscape, I observe
that most works, attempting to explore invisible issues in the environment, prefer to map or reify
soundscapes. This is where my own work contributes to and moves the conversation forward. In
the next chapter, I explain the methods that I used to record, analyze, and visualize soundscapes to
interpret urban ecology.
9
Chapter 3: Auditory Exploration through Collection and Manipulation
3.1 Method overview: Case Study and Designing with Data
In Chapter Two, I considered the literature, theory and visualization of soundscapes across
a range of disciplines in which the visual representation of the human soundscape might be
expressed as a field of sensory communication for auditory information. First, I recorded sounds
for the database. Then, I transferred this data into visual forms. My research calls attention to the
ecological nature and complexity of the soundscape. The process of rendering sounds as optically
visible is similar to the design process where conceptual statements manifest as physical outputs,
generating new relational links. My research brings together established methodologies:
“designing with data” and the “case study.”
In their book, Designing with Data, Rochelle King, Elizabeth F Churchill, and Caitlin Tan
write: “This is a two-way conversation: design can bring deeper meaning to data. By developing
an awareness of and an affinity for data, such conversations will benefit both disciplines. Similarly,
design practice can be enhanced by data.” As such I suggest that perceptions of soundscapes can
be understood through design and that a dataset of environmental sounds can support the creation
process. My research reproduces aspects of the natural world as witnessed through collected
auditory data to create sensible worlds by utilizing “data-driven”, “data-informed” and “data-
aware” (Figure 4).
18
I am aware of the subtle changes in the environment through sonic data. As
data-inform, I try to translate them through a visual language of my own design to present the
soundscapes in new ways. Then, data drives the final work and outcome.
18
King, R., Churchill, E. F., & Tan, C. (2017). Designing with data: Improving the user experience with A/B testing.
Sebastopol, CA: OReilly Media.
10
Figure 4 Designing with Data, by Rochelle King, Elizabeth F Churchill, and Caitlin Tan
I also use the case study method, defined by social scientist Robert Yin as “an empirical
research method used to investigate a contemporary phenomenon, focusing on the dynamics of the
case within its real life context, when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not
clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used.” This approach led me to
examine how sound data relates to its location.
19
The advantage of the case study is that it draws
from theory to generate practice. My first case study investigates Downtown Los Angeles with
soundwalks from the winter of 2019. The second case study considers soundscapes from six
different parks located around L.A. in January 2020. The third explores the environmental issues
reflected by the soundscape on Hoover Street in the spring of 2020.
3.2 Collection of Data
For my case study, I walked through urban areas of L.A. carrying various recording devices
including an Apple iPhone as well as more sophisticated equipment like a Zoom H4n Pro handy
recorder. My walks took me through downtown, six different parks, and along Hoover Street where
I recorded both natural- and human-produced sounds. The first walk was at random, similar to a
19
Yin, R. K. (1981). The Case Study as a Serious Research Strategy. Knowledge, 3(1), 97-114.
doi:10.1177/107554708100300106
11
Situationist dérive,
20
through downtown Los Angeles in order to experience the uniqueness of its
soundscape. The blog Cities and Memories showed that field recordings need to consider
representativeness, development, length and clarity.
21
Therefore, I planned the route to find places
that have their own soundscape that reflect their ecologies.
Documenting and organizing the recordings, I was inspired by Henri Lefebvre’s work in
Rhythmanalysis:
Rhythm is something inseparable from understanding of time, in particular repetition. It is
found in the workings of our towns and cities, in urban life and movement through space.
Equally, in the collision of natural biological and social timescales, the rhythms of our
bodies and society, the analysis of rhythms provides a privileged insight into the question
of everyday life.
22
Thus, in my research I recorded clips of environmental sounds in a punctuated, rhythmic order,
such as recording once per hour, once per day, and once per week (Figure 5). The element of time
plays an important role in my research in exploring and exposing the relationships between space
and time, which can be used to analyze the meanings and patterns of a soundscape.
Figure 5 List of Recordings
20
Guy Debord. (1956). Theory of the Dérive. Les Lèvres Nues #9 (Paris, November 1956). Reprinted in Internationale
- Situationniste #2 (Paris, December 1958).
21
The top 5 things you need to make a great field recording - Cities & Memory: Field Recordings, Sound Map, Sound
Art. (2019, November 28). Retrieved from http://citiesandmemory.com/2014/08/top-5-things-need-make-great-field-
recording/?fbclid=IwAR0fLErAHVSg0iJfg8CNvBhQ6K5XqJ4IZmG9Z3UBDJz-K8Qb7PVY6vIMxos
22
Lefebvre, H. (2017). Rhythmanalysis: Space, time, and everyday life. London: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of
Bloomsbury Publishing PIc.
12
3.3 Manipulation of Data
3.3.1 Meaning of Data
After I had amassed databases of sound from several places, sound recording data as a
human-sensed dataset led me to consider my own responsibility with regard to the data. My
intention is to “become more human and to connect with ourselves and others at a deeper level”.
23
My work was inspired by the practices in the book, Dear Data, and its methods of manipulating
and visualizing data. In the chapter on “music”, information designers Georgia Lupi and Stefanie
Posavec use colors to categorize music’s styles and sensations. They are focused on “how to read
it”, which means how to tell stories through data annotations. To be more specific, they are unique
languages used to communicate qualitative and quantitative data to readers. Lupi also says, “we
transformed raw information into interconnected knowledge, presenting unexpected parallels and
secondary tales to supplement the main story”.
24
Consequently, elements of language and form,
such as iconography, shape, and color will be generated for the “storytelling” of soundscapes in
understandable and perceivable ways.
3.3.2 Designing with Data
In Designing with Data, King, Churchill and Tan suggest that there are three phases (Figure
6) to experimentation: Definition, Execution, and Analysis.
25
In the definition phase, I set the goal
of making urban ecology perceivable in order to raise awareness about environmental issues. Then,
in the execution phase, I turned those sound data into motions and an immersive digital
environment to preserve the temporal sound data so that the sound data can be understood and
analyzed in reasonable forms. Lastly, in the analysis phase, I perform the resulting outcomes to
23
Lupi, G., & Posavec, S. (2016). Dear data. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
24
Data Humanism. Retrieved from http://giorgialupi.com/data-humanism-my-manifesto-for-a-new-data-wold
25
King, R., Churchill, E. F., & Tan, C. (2017). Designing with data: Improving the user experience with A/B testing.
Sebastopol, CA: OReilly Media.
13
explore the relationships between human-activities and environments and to introspect further the
contemporary environment.
Figure 6 Three Phases of Experimenting with Data, by King, Churchill, and Tan
3.3.3 Redefine Data into Colors
The German-born artist Joseph Albers considered color to be "the most relevant medium
in art" because the contextualization of color is the most vital insight for artists to grasp. When
visualizing soundscape, I conveyed the context of the local environment through colors attributed
to sound symbols. Following the advice of the geographer John Krygier and the cartographer Denis
Wood for tackling geographical issues, “if your data are qualitative, choose a visual carriable that
suggests qualitative differences, such as shape or color hue”.
26
The visual cues, such as colored
shapes, indicate the potential of creating new imagined environmental spaces to allow people to
perceive the environment in temporal and spatial dimensions.
26
Krygier, J., & Wood, D. (2016). Making Maps, Third Edition: A Visual Guide to Map Design for GIS. Guilford
Press.
14
Chapter 4. Case Studies
4.1 Case Study 1: SCENE VOLUME
4.1.1 Background and Planning
For many people urban areas are full of potential encounters with a variety of cultures,
people, and scenes. Each street has its own style and each block has its own features. Yet, in this
fast-paced environment, people may not experience these various materials or pay attention to the
space that surrounds them.
The most common and intuitive way for people to explore the environment in this era of
visual hegemony is to “see.” However, contemporary video artist Bill Viola says:
I think of all the senses as being unified. I do not consider sound as separate from image.
We usually think of the camera as an ‘eye’ and the microphone as an ‘ear’, but all the
senses exist simultaneously in our bodies, interwoven into one system that includes sensory
data, neural processing, memory, imagination, and all the mental events of the moment.
This all adds up to create the larger phenomenon we call experience.
27
When experiencing the surroundings with our senses, such as hearing, we might perceive the
environment deeply. It is much like the theory of sound-storytelling the French experimental
composer Michel Chion presents in Audio-Vision, in which he states that sound itself can tell
stories and have independent meanings.
28
I was inspired by the Canadian artist Janet Cardiff’s audio/video walks, Night Walk for
Edinburgh, to understand the environment via the senses.
29
In November 2019, I started sound
walks along South Broadway to South Hill Street from the Historic Broadway Theater District to
Grand Central Market and Angels Flight Railway. The following are possible locations with their
anticipated sounds:
27
Viola, B., & Violette, R. (1995). Reasons for knocking at an empty house: Writings 1973-1994 (pp.151-152).
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
28
Chion, M. (2019). Audio-vision: Sound on screen. New York: Columbia U.P.
29
Buresmiller. (2019, December 16). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jwZmxp1zsA
15
• Historic Broadway Theater District (people, cars etc.)
• Arcade Building (street performers, people etc.)
• Pershing Square (kids laugh, birds/insects, rustling leaves etc.)
• Angels Flight Railway (trains, rustling leaves, birds, insects etc.)
• Grand Market (people, cooking etc.)
I designed the unidirectional routes (Figure 7) approximately 0.6 miles in length with an estimated
duration of 10 minutes in order to include a variety soundscapes that reflect the diversity of L.A.
The 10-minute sound walks took place every hour from 8:00 am to 15:00 pm on November 12
th
in 2019. The goal was to seek and collect various types of materials for the case study.
Figure 7 Sound Walk Map
4.1.2 Data Collection
I carried my Apple iPhone and the Zoom H4n Pro handy recorder during my first sound
walk. I stopped by the identified locations to take notes (Figure 8) on what I heard and to draw
what I saw through representations in colors and symbols. As a result, I collected 7 clips, each
16
about 10 minutes long. The sound walks happened in rhythm for recording temporal data. To
borrow from the human geographer Tim Edensor, rhythm analysis is particularly useful “for
investigating the patterning of a range of multiscale temporalities – calendrical, diurnal and lunar,
lifecycle, somatic and mechanical.”
30
The recorded soundscape will be shown to reveal such
patterns in space.
Figure 8 Notes from Sound Walk, by Chih-Wei Chao, 2020
4.1.3 Data Manipulation
If the scene has volume, what will it look like?
“Volume” is defined as the amplitude of a soundwave, and is used to describe the quantity
of waves that occupy a three dimensional space (length, width, and height). In the context of the
urban environment, “Representations are signs interposed between something (objects,
phenomena, actions) and our perceptions and understanding of that something.”
31
Representation
is thus understood in this study as a mediated and filtered medium to clarify, make sense of, and
30
Edensor, T. (2012). The rhythms of tourism. In Real Tourism: Practice, Care, and Politics in Contemporary Travel
Culture, 68-85. doi:10.4324/9780203180969-10
31
Duarte, F. (2017). Space, Place and Territory: A Critical Review on Spatialities (p.100). Routledge.
17
share messages. My criteria is to represent a key sound sequence for each site. This results in five
representative sounds: birds, people, cars, street performers and rustling leaves.
For the case study of Scene Volume, I used Unity to model an immersive space through
Virtual Reality (VR) (Figure 9-11) based on the locations of recorded sound data, notes, and
images, so that could experience this spatial and imaginative soundscape. I divided the different
sounds into moving shapes with colors to represent the waves of sounds. The choice of colors for
classification was found in the city itself in order to create connections to the visual ambiance of
the city. Thus, car sounds are gray (exhaust emissions), birds sounds are mixed light purple
(domestic pigeon and black-chinned hummingbird), people talking and laughing are mixed beige
(diversity), street performers are pink (their outfits), and rustling leaves are brown and green.
Different elements are layered based on the sound data and notes so as to generate a degree of
density to reflect the volume of sounds. Tall buildings mingle with generative shapes to create the
feeling of colliding soundwaves while walking on downtown streets and passing along city blocks.
This work in VR is a non-linear storytelling method for creating an imagined space that enables
people to perceive the volume of the scene while randomly moving through virtual space. The
American musician Damon Krukowski, in his book The New Analog, describes listening as “part
of an imagined space – a space not of the world but in our heads, conjured through the manipulation
of our sense of location.”
32
Viewing the composition of different curving colored shapes makes
urban ecology sensible, including human activities and natural phenomenon. This work explores
layers of space to guide the audience into emotive and sensory experiences.
32
Krukowski, D. (2017). The New Analog. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
18
Figure 9 Screenshot from Scene Volume, by Chih-Wei Chao, 2020
Figure 10 Screenshot from Scene Volume, by Chih-Wei Chao, 2020
Figure 11 Screenshot from Scene Volume, by Chih-Wei Chao, 2020
19
4.2 Case study 2: LISTEN THIS WAY
4.2.1 Background and Planning
In urban areas, parks and public green grids are significant and serve important functions
for recreation, well-being and urban hygiene.
33
Parks are close to people’s daily lives. In the
exhibition Urban Parks in the United States, held by the Digital Public Library of America, it
states that the design of parks were “Responding to concerns about urbanization and
industrialization, park designers often strove to replicate a rural setting to provide an opportunity
for park users living far away from the country to have a restorative retreat from the city. Thus
groves of trees, rolling meadows, lakes and meandering paths were common features.”
34
However,
in many places where cites have densified, park activities are becoming more programmed. Urban
green space are the developing into “culture parks” where people congregate and play the role of
culture consumers.
35
Urban parks are rare, isolated pockets of nature within an obsolete but still
connect with cities and neighborhoods.
These features of urban parks led me think about how to explore the relationship between
a green space, a city, and human activities through the spatial dimensions of sounds. The acoustic
sculptor Michael Brewster said:
“Sound has properties beyond its considerable powers of evocation that are actual physical
things we can feel and locate with our ears, sometimes with our bodies. Sound has physical
size, actual dimensions in feet or meters, as well as density, vibrancy, rhythms and
textures.”
36
33
Historical importance and development of parks and public green grids: Urban green-blue grids. Retrieved from
https://www.urbangreenbluegrids.com/about/historical-importance-and-development-of-parks-and-public-green-grids/
34
Parks in the United States. Retrieved from https://dp.la/exhibitions/urban-parks/types-parks/city-cultural-parks
35
Ibid.
36
Brewster, M. (1999). Where, There or Here. In Site of Sound: of Architecture and the Ear edited by LaBelle, B. &
Roden, S.
20
In the spatiality of sound, we can feel the various distances of sounds both outside and inside parks.
The goal of this case study is to examine a chaotic multi-sensory environment through recorded
sounds. I visited six urban parks in L.A. (Figure 12, 13) to form the case study:
• Elysian Park (600 acres; Elysian Heights)
• MacArthur Park (35 acres; Westlake)
• Los Angeles State Historic Park (32 acres; Chinatown)
• Echo Park (29 acres; Echo Park)
• Grand Park (12 acres; Little Tokyo)
• Spring Street Park (0.7 acres; Historic Core District)
Figure 12 Map of Six Parks
21
Figure 13 Photos of Six Parks
4.2.2 Data Collection
On the morning of January 25
th
2020, I used the Zoom H4n handy recorder for 30-minute
sound collections in these 6 parks. This case study is a field recording practice in a stationary
position, which differs from the mobile soundwalks in case study 1: Scene Volume. I placed the
handy recorder with a stand in those six parks to record sounds in both the parks and from their
surrounding areas.
4.2.3 Data Manipulation
The recorded sounds have biophonic (animal-generated) and anthropophonic (human-
generated) sounds from both inside and outside the parks. Those six clips are archives of sound
sequences in different communities and neighborhoods.
22
How sound can be learned? How can sound serve as an instrument for understanding the
relationship between green spaces and the total urban environment? I was influenced by Stefanie
Posavec’s work, art.park.data,
37
which visualizes data from the East London Canvas to represent
the park in a pictorial or graphical format to make data understood comprehensively. I transferred
the sound data into motions through Grasshopper, which can input different parameters to output
3D geometries via audio-visual algorithms. The various parameters are based on the frequencies
of recorded sounds for portraying the soundscapes. This series of generative motion-geometries
represent the six parks’ surroundings, or habitat, in which people, animals and plants live. The
colors in motion also refer to the types of sound; biophonic sounds (birds and insects) are light-
green and anthropophonics sounds (humans, cars, and construction noises) are red-purple, which
is the contrasting color to light-green (Figure 14, 15).
The parks appear to be isolated islands in the city, but they are also connected to their
communities. I assumed the initial islands are several different round balls without any stimulation.
However, due to location, terrain, community engagements, and etc., these round balls are shaped
into unique flowing shapes over time that represent their functions and connections to the city. The
soundscapes also reply to the meaning of parks with multi-sensory environments in cities. Through
these sequences of motions, we can feel the parks as tangible reflections of their community, which
are close to the whole community and give it identity.
37
Art.park.data - Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Retrieved from http://www.stefanieposavec.com/artparkdata-queen-
elizabeth-olympic-park
23
Figure 14 Screenshot of Listen This Way, by Chih-Wei Chao, 2020
Figure 15 Geometries Generated by Sounds (left) and Photos of Six Parks (right), by Chih-Wei
Chao, 2020
24
4.3 Case Study 3: WALKING THROUGH THE HABITAT
4.3.1 Background and Planning
After one lives in a space for a period of time, changes within the space become
unnoticeable. Space is intimately bound up with time. The sound and space artist Bernhard Leitner
describes the relationship between time and space: “Space here is a sequence of spatial sensations
– in its very essence an event of time. Space unfolds in time; it is developed, repeated and
transformed in time.”
38
The environment is always changing and environmental sounds are also
changing. Without recording, we may not notice changes in the environment. Therefore, I recorded
sounds near where I live as a case study for analyzing the movement of the environment.
“Habitat”, according to Merriam-Webster’s, is the place or environment where a plant or
animal naturally or normally lives and grows. The case study began from Hoover Street (Figure
16). From my observations, this is a developed and high-density residential area with extensive
human activity. The goal of this case study is to explore the relationship between human and urban
ecology in the selected habitats.
Figure 16 Location of Hoover Street
38
Bernhard Leitner. (1977). Sound Space Manifesto.
25
4.3.2 Data Collection
I was particularly influenced by the soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause, who works on
field recordings over long periods of time in order to discover ecological changes in an area.
39
I
placed the Zoom H4n Pro handy recorder with a Zoom TPS-5 tripod stand at the corner of Hoover
and West 28
th
Streets (Figure 17) to record environmental sounds as the dataset for the case study.
As I mentioned in Chapter 3, I record sounds in “rhythm” (at 8:00 am on Monday over a five week
period) in order to observe the movement of the environment in the spring of 2020. Specifically,
recordings occurred on the 8
th
, 15
th
, 22
nd
, and 29
th
of February and the 7
th
of March. Each recording
lasts about an hour. All recordings were marked in the order to transcribe them into a database for
analysis.
Figure 17 Photo of The Recording Spot
39
Krause, B. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/bernie_krause_the_voice_of_the_natural_world
26
4.3.3 Data Manipulation
To analyze the recordings, I wrote code in P5.js which processed the data to create motions
and to categorize different frequencies of sounds, including natural sounds (the frequency of birds
and insects have ranges between 1000 Hz and 8000 Hz
40
) and noise. Then, I used P5.js to visualize
the sound data into arcs in a circle for three reasons: to indicate their wave derivation, to represent
the perception of the dataset as a series of individual happenings, and to illustrate the wide spread
of its natural features (Figure 18). The results of the moving arcs thus offer an imagined view that
might also be understood to be representations of the experience of the environment’s complexities.
Figure 18 Five Weeks Soundscapes, by Chih-Wei Chao, 2020
While the motion graphics generated from p5.js provided a side-by-side visual comparison
of the 5 weeks, I decided to overlay the resulting image sets on the webpage (Figure 19), walking
through the habitat,
41
in order to show how the work visualizes the collective understanding of
how human activities affect urban ecology in the final work. I enlarged each motion to fill the
frame to create an immersive experience. This website shows archives of time through a series of
40
Do bird songs have frequencies higher than humans can hear? (2009, April 1). Retrieved from
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/do-bird-songs-have-frequencies-higher-than-humans-can-hear/
41
Walking Through the Habitat: https://cchao822.github.io/walkingthroughthehabitat/index.html
27
clicks. The action of the “clicks” also touches on the erasure of natural sounds in the environment
due to human impact. For color, I chose different tones to express bird or insect sounds (orange)
and noise (blue-green). In the final work, the series of motions dissolves over time to highlight
how human activities (car and construction noise) influences the ecosystem. In the last piece, the
orange part shrinks, which means that natural bird and insect sounds have disappeared.
Figure 19 Screenshots of The Interactive Website, Walking Through The Habitat, by Chih-Wei
Chao, 2020
28
Chapter 5: Conclusion
Having examined how we experience and perceive the environment through our senses,
this final chapter concludes my research findings. Through these case studies we can become more
aware of our surroundings and the sensory experiences that make up the world we encounter.
Moreover, I hope to shine a light on human activities in urban areas, and the degree to which those
activities are endangering the balance within the urban ecology.
I approached the work using sound walking and field recordings for data collection, and
three theories from Designing with Data for data manipulation. Through these three case studies
(Scene Volume, Listen This Way, and Walking Through the Habitat), I developed several practices
to render the soundscape optically visible by giving sounds form, shape, and color that represent
the spatial and temporal audio that occurs in the environment. These include: Virtual Reality, a
series of motion graphics, and an interactive website. Representing sounds using a variety of
communicable visual forms contribute to its potential for re-communicating and addressing
environmental issues.
These three case studies focused on showing environmental information through acoustic
analysis. The aim of perceiving the environment is to understand the dynamic nature of humans’
sensorial perceptions while being in and moving through our ecosystems. In the end, I hope that
viewers closely listen to, look at, and feel the environment of their everyday lives.
29
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Abstract (if available)
Abstract
In our ocular-centric, fast-paced and media-driven world, we experience sensory overload that alters “the way we think and act—the way we perceive the world.” This thesis takes urban areas in Los Angeles (LA) as case studies for auditory explorations. I record the information of the environment through notetaking, sketching, and sound-recording in order to compose a database. These data are then translated to drive graphic patterns in Virtual Reality (VR), motions of 3D geometries and an interactive website that makes urban ecology perceivable through our sensory faculties. My aim is to enable users to experience new ways of seeing and understanding environments.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Chao, Chih-Wei
(author)
Core Title
Perceiving the environment through sound
School
Roski School of Art and Design
Degree
Master of Fine Arts
Degree Program
Design
Publication Date
04/08/2021
Defense Date
02/28/2021
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
data visualization,experiencing design,OAI-PMH Harvest,sonic interaction design,Storytelling,urban ecology
Language
English
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Electronically uploaded by the author
(provenance)
Advisor
Wojciak, Ewa (
committee chair
), Fung, Alice (
committee member
), Greiman, April (
committee member
), Trujillo, Osvaldo (
committee member
)
Creator Email
cchao822@usc.edu,oliviachao0820@gmail.com
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Tags
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