Sounds of the Everyday: Recent Episodes
keshalagniappe
An art project that focuses on decolonizing the idea of "art" itself and the visual notions attached to it. It's conceptual. It's about sounds of the everyday. Most of the world operates and emphasizes the physical and visual. Not only art, but every crevice of life. So, I want to focus on unseen sensorial relationships like sound.
The sound of a copy machine marks office and business space. The shuffling of feet, the ding of the waiting que marks that this is a place of business where people have to wait in line for customer service. It was the Western Union depot where I waited for 2 hours to pick up a wire cash transfer.
This is a sample of sound as signal and indicator. As I lose my hearing or as the sound around be grows in volume, my money hits the ground or I do not notice it has come out of the slot because I do not hear the kerr sound.
My uber driver this day was driving a manual transmission car. As he shifted gears on the stick shift, I remember my first driving lesson. I was told, "if you can drive a stick, you can drive anything." How the engine revs, the clutch pops and the engine shifts to a light buzz once the gear is switched. The type of music playing in the background faded by the sound of the gears and movements of the car itself. All very telling of where I am and what I am doing.
The first I leave you with is of the street vendor signaling the cart is coming through. Some love the presence of street vendors, however in modernity projects and gentrification, street vendors are markers of the lower-class, deemed "unwanted" or "undesirable." So, although I personally get nostalgic when I hear a street vendor clanging through, shouting his jingle about what's being served, some see him as unwanted noise in a space.