tune in, tune out, and all about
author: Katherine Barrett
a listening exercise that questions how we experience the city with our ears. When we tune out, we accept sounds as inevitable. This exercise asks you to tune in to how the city could sound
Each of us exist in the city in our own unique way, our own daily routines, our own favorite places. We walk down streets, we go get groceries, we meet up with friends and sit in parks on warm afternoons. Through all this we are surrounded with the symphony of the city. The buzzing of cars, the honking of horns, tapping of rain hitting the pavement all culminating together. But how much do we actually listen to the city? Do we separate the trumpeting horns from the buzzing kazoo, the tapping of the piano from the rustling of the maracas? What does what we hear through all that fuzz of daily life say about us, our experiences, and how we see the city in the future. In this audio and written essay I will ask you to try to listen in different ways and reflect on how you listen through questions, and through my own reflections, to reveal what it says about how we view the city.