Reflections
1. 1. Evaluating the effectiveness of the interventions
After the completion of the interventions, the group reflected on their effectiveness. In short, there was a unanimous feeling that the interventions had been successful from personal, group, and class perspectives. The opportunity to transform the soundscape through an active listening experience was deeply rewarding for the students. (A fact emphasized by formal class satisfaction surveys administered by the University, which demonstrated a 100% satisfaction rate with the course, based primarily on the soundscape intervention exercise.) It gave them new perspectives on the city soundscape as something that belongs to them and which is open to creative dialogue. Rather than simply building a relationship with city sounds, they were actively encouraged to participate in their creation.
However, it was equally unanimous that the registered effects on other people in the space, with the exception of “Jingle Bells,” was negligible. Students concluded that the majority of people walked through the space without seeming to notice the introduced sounds, seemingly as unaware of the transformed acoustic space as they were of the original space. There could be a host of reasons for this, but the class consensus was that most people are predominantly in passive listening mode and have not been educated to meaningfully participate with the sounds of the city. This conclusion resonates with a primary concern of acoustic ecology – ear-cleaning, which is “a systematic program for training the ears to listen more discriminatingly to sounds, particularly those of the environment” (Schafer 1977: 272) – and CRESSON’s claim that “listening [for] sonic effects and developing the capacity to identify them [is] part of a rehabilitation of general auditory sensitivity” (Augoyard and Torgue 2005: 13).
“Jingle Bells” attracted more attention from people in the space, which may be due to the visual nature of the intervention. In an ocular-centric society, people are more attuned to visual transformations than to aural ones. However, as discussed with the students, the very existence of their soundscape design interventions forms part of an ongoing process that encourages people to listen more attentively to the city and to participate more readily in its design.
2. 2. Uncovering the Power Complex
An unintended educational outcome of this project was discovering power networks that protect noise. A web of power relationships intersected at the intervention site, revealed as multiple bureaucratic forces (see list below) that responded to the site activity. Lefebvre’s writings provide a language to understand such experiences:
As a body of constraints, stipulations and rules to be followed, social space acquires a normative and repressive efficacy […] that makes the efficacy of mere ideologies and representations pale in comparison. (Lefebvre 1991: 358)
In the case of the discussed site, as a pedagogue (which, of course, made me another actant in the power network), I was able to disentangle the web of power relations so that students could engage in a free-flowing dialogue with their city. The importance of winning support from governing authorities before creative soundscape design approaches can be implemented is made clear by this project (unless a rebellious stance is taken, in which case the loss of equipment and liberty becomes a genuine risk!). Over a period of three months, the following university departments were contended with on a weekly and sometimes daily basis: health & safety officers, fire services, facility services, property services, audio-technical manager, ethics committee, the student union, market stall holders, and client-relations managers. Additionally, cleaners complained on the day of sound interventions that their route to nearby rubbish bins was blocked; security maintained a presence; and occasional passers-by surveyed the area and made concerned phone calls.
The existence of the noise source represents a constraint imposed on a space by the very same hidden agents responsible for its ongoing propagation. Regardless of what ideologies the systems responsible for the generation of such noisy environments might represent, their real power lies in the capacity to define “normal behavior” in public spaces: in this instance, the homogenous social interactions related to the space’s changeless sonic presence. As Lefebvre states, “space commands bodies, prescribing or proscribing gestures” (Lefebvre 1991: 143). It demonstrates that creative activities and interventions that seek to redefine relationships between people and soundscape are not possible without first disentangling a web of concealed power complexes. The freedom to creatively intervene is diminished; instead, our actions remain controlled by social norms unless the individual, or social group, consciously contends with those forces that will inevitably be revealed. Consequently, socio-political analysis of human activity becomes an important complement to the act of soundscape design.
There is more that could be written about this experience;[6] however, in the context of this paper, this issue is raised to demonstrate challenges to creative responses to soundscape design in the city. It is also a point of reflection for those intending to design similar activities for future projects: the pedagogue plays an integral role in clearing space for the creative exertions of the students.