Reconsidering Sound
Veronica Garcia
Sonic interaction has increasingly become an important aspect of design as different digital products enter the market. While aural considerations were once primarily focused on noise reduction and other functional aspects, they have shifted to targeting the emotive power of sound in order to produce meaningful, engaging, and pleasing sonic experiences. As technology brands start to deeply incorporate sonic design into their products, it is important for us to revise our analytical outlook on sound. This means redefining our relationship to it. The following pieces question our current soundscapes.
Sound Icons
Using a homemade laser sound visualizer, I produced a collection of sound-ring videos from product sounds, which were then used to create stills from various overlapping points to form a single “icon” representation of each sound. In total, this process created a series of over 40 visual icons.
Sound Imaging
We know sound exists as waves, vibrations, and as rhythm. How can these known and common visuals of sound be adapted to see our environment in a new light? The images in this series adapt recorded laser reflections to create icons and offer a new outlook in observing our soundscapes. Visualizing
Dreams
This piece questions the visual language related to invasive experiences by taking friends’ dreams, and obscuring them with representations of alarm clocks. The dreams consisting of three layers: acetate, paint, and plexiglass, were made so they will never dry. Digital manipulation captures the elusive and dark nature of each experience.Comfort Charms
What is the most soothing sound you’ve ever heard? Can it be designed to live in portable, dosage form? Wearable and nostalgic, this speculative product line transforms sounds into thing-ness, and allows individuals an opportunity to carry a piece of childhood-inspired solace everywhere they go.
AURAL ARENA
Being a culmination of this research, the Aural Arena was created as an archive that offers the opportunity to explore a maze made up of sounds that have been decontextualized. The sounds, old and new, share one commonality though they have numerous implications.