Reflection: Soundwalk Project

Working in a group of four, I had a wonderful time creating a soundwalk. We had a great energy collaborating on the storyline and key moments of the journey. We wanted the experience to be fun and witty, which ended up being unique from the general theme of other soundwalks by our classmates.

It was both gratifying and disorienting to edit the sounds together. Listening over and over again to the various sounds we collected, especially the meows of my own cat (Loafy), I would focus in on the individual tracks and picture in my mind the moment we were recording them. Then, seeing everything come together to present a completely new narrative, it was such a satisfying experience. I was especially intrigued to see our classmates and other people go through our soundwalk — they were not experiencing the situation during which we captured the sounds but instead a fabricated story that we had created.

Soundwalks by our classmates were much more serious and emotional than ours, which I appreciated. It went to show how much of an immersive experience soundwalks can be, to combine the virtual world in our headphones with the physical space around us. Many of the soundwalks were in the staircases, which may have served as a cleaner “canvas” for soundwalk authors to paint the picture on, but as discussed in class, we as creators should consider accessibility and the experience diverse audience groups could have.