Audio Process Piece

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Artists' Statement

When the project to create an audio documentary was announced our minds grew wild at the fascinating possibilities.  We fancied that we could record a process that sounded like something else and then surprise the listener at the end by revealing what they were actually hearing.  For example, the listener would hear someone being murdered, but in the end realize that it was a very ordinary task such as tying a shoe.   However, we soon found that this would be a lot harder to do than we thought.  The end product turned out much different than what we had originally intended.  Yet we still created something that is interesting and gained much through the process.  

Going with the whole murder idea, we thought that ice hockey would be a good source to generate the sounds of death: blades could sound like knives; laces being snapped together could sound as if someone was tying up a victim.  However, once we actually retrieved the sounds, we found that they were not very analogous to homicide.  We had to come up with a new approach and decided that we would just focus on hockey.

As a result we have an observational style audio process of a man preparing for a Hockey match.  We say observational because like observational cinema, there are no interviews.  We only hear sounds.  Yet it can also be classified as performative as the sounds were created to represent a process that did not actually transpire as we recorded it.  With this style, it is as though the listener is the athlete himself.  At first he has a nervous focus.  The only thing he can hear is the sound of lacing up his skates or walking out of the locker room.  It is similar to the movie Rocky the night before the fight.  Rocky walks through the arena and the only thing that the viewer can hear is his footsteps.   In both pieces, the sound reflects the athlete’s state of mind.  As our hockey player makes it to the rink, he begins to hear the crowd and the adrenaline kicks in.  Finally, the music stops and the athlete is immersed in an intense focus.

Of course, this is what we hope to convey to the listener but we are aware that he may interpret it differently.  Using roommates as a test audience we asked what they thought of when listening to the piece.  The hockey game was pretty obvious but the sound of lacing up ice skates at the beginning did not click with them.  They thought it was someone dragging something through snow.  One person even thought of a crime scene.  With this ambiguity of the piece, we can say that we touched upon our original intent.  However, we were far from communicating either vision.  As we learned from Ira Glass, we had good taste but our end product was not as good as our ambitions.  It’s a work in process.

- Tom Hartvigsen

  Juan Rodriguez