David Dunn in this essay, outlines the different implications of sound that we have as human beings. He himself is an artist who focuses on sound as a medium.
With that he has been able to categorize the nature of sound as we see it and as other organisms see it. He begins with an interesting look at how we experience any sound.
He notes that, based on the community and environment we are living in determines how we perceive certain noises and their relationship to other noises. He notes that “each form of life hears a slightly different multiverse.”
This is to say that us as humans may be standing in the exact same spot as a different species like an insect or animal, yet we will both hear different things.
Further, the experience of sound becomes more complex when as humans we have a tendency to categorize what our senses. With our complex way of thought we have distinguished nature from city, outdoors vs, specific objects, and further music from noise.
Music here is defined as “mapping reality through metaphors of sound as if it were a parallel way of thinking to the visually dominant metaphors of our speech and written symbols.” Socially, music has been able to take sound and build something relatable. It has transf
ormed the way we look at linguistics, art and entertainment.
An important quote was said by Gregory Bateson, “while entertainment is the food of depression, being easy to engage but lacking long term interest, art requires discipline to engage but leaves one rigger in the end.” This is what many of the artists mentioned such as John Cage seem to follow in their expression of sound. Dunn’s own artwork also follows this notion. While music seems perfectly defined by numbers and pitches, these artists separate to focus on sound manipulation, everyday noises, and decontextualization. Dunn focuses on environmental sound and building soundscapes. Through this he is able to contextualize the patterns and musical rhythms in nature and is able to capture a specific time in the spaces he is in. Overall sound goes beyond what we hear, speak or play. It is a representation of the environment we are in, and a reflection of our own senses.
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