Sound and Place ︎︎︎
Often, when we think of a place, we think first of what it looks like. This activity is a way to encourage students to consider the role that sound has in shaping our environment.
DISCUSSION PROMPTS
• Are there particular sounds you associate with certain places? • How can sounds affect our mood?
• What sounds do you find soothing and what sounds are irritating?
• What sounds make you happy or sad?
• What sounds help you focus and what sounds are distracting?
CREATIVE WRITING EXERCISE
Sometimes, if you want to focus on one of your senses (like hearing), it helps to block out a different sense (in this case, vision, by closing your eyes).
1 Ask the students to close their eyes and pick an environment or place they know well.
2 Each student writes a detailed description of this place, by describing only what it sounds like. Start by asking some questions: What sounds would they hear? If there are people there, can we hear them talking—what are they saying? Can we hear what they are doing—are they working, playing, or passing through? Is there music playing? If so, what kind? If it’s outside, can we hear industrial sounds, sounds of nature, or perhaps a mix?
3 Ask some students to share their writing, and other students to guess what place they are describing.
Variation: Imagined Spaces
Students follow the creative writing exercise above, but rather than describing a real place, they imagine how a place they have never been to might sound (e.g., a rainforest, a street market in another country, the jungle, a spaceship).
DISCUSSION PROMPTS
• Are there particular sounds you associate with certain places? • How can sounds affect our mood?
• What sounds do you find soothing and what sounds are irritating?
• What sounds make you happy or sad?
• What sounds help you focus and what sounds are distracting?
CREATIVE WRITING EXERCISE
Sometimes, if you want to focus on one of your senses (like hearing), it helps to block out a different sense (in this case, vision, by closing your eyes).
1 Ask the students to close their eyes and pick an environment or place they know well.
2 Each student writes a detailed description of this place, by describing only what it sounds like. Start by asking some questions: What sounds would they hear? If there are people there, can we hear them talking—what are they saying? Can we hear what they are doing—are they working, playing, or passing through? Is there music playing? If so, what kind? If it’s outside, can we hear industrial sounds, sounds of nature, or perhaps a mix?
3 Ask some students to share their writing, and other students to guess what place they are describing.
Variation: Imagined Spaces
Students follow the creative writing exercise above, but rather than describing a real place, they imagine how a place they have never been to might sound (e.g., a rainforest, a street market in another country, the jungle, a spaceship).
Welcome to mapping collaboration, a toolbox for workshopping and creating across disciplines...
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
The inspiration for this project came from faculty and students at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts where BFA, MFA and PhD programs in Dance, Theatre Production and Design, Visual Art, Film, and Music and Sound all work together in studio settings and playfully experiment with processes of art-making.
We wanted to create a database of projects, assignments and theory that we collect inside the studio and from research happening in other places. We are curious about how we collaborate and how structures reoccur, translate and deviate from one discipline to another.
Composition is central to these processes and offers a base for our approaches and experiments. We are excited about what our students are doing and inspired by the new languages in contemporary art and performance we continue to see develop.
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
