Hi everyone,
Below are the recordings that I took while wandering around the West Loop on Saturday afternoon. One of the reasons I decided to begin my project in the West Loop is that a good friend of mine is from the area and has been complaining about the gentrification that has been occurring and is continuing to occur there; specifically, she was really bent out of shape about the forthcoming closing of her favorite Mexican restaurant, Perez (although it's actually not clear now as to whether or not Perez is closing-- they're still open and have raised their prices). I actually have included two recordings from outside of Perez below--one of general chatter and one of a car stopped outside.
I already articulated this in class, but as I know I tend to write things better than I say them, I thought I would say it again in this post: after exploring the sounds of the West Loop, I've decided to narrow the scope of my project to neighborhoods that have been gentrified (e.g. Wicker Park), neighborhoods in various phases of gentrification (West Loop, Pilsen, Logan Square), and maybe using a neighborhood that has yet to go through gentrification as a control of sorts. In particular, the West Loop made me interested in how music permeates public spaces-- for instance, music from cars passing by, from someone walking down the street with headphones that have a lot of bleed, music from storefronts, etc. I'd also be interested in seeing if there is any relationship that exists between music in public spaces and gentrification.
Also, I recognize that my work from in the West Loop is lacking the human element that is critical to ethnography and our class-- still working on how to fit that into this sound map. Also still working on figuring out how to actually make the sound map.
Anyway, the last two tracks most closely resemble the kind of soundscapes I'd like to look at. The second to last is a car blasting music outside of Perez, and the last is an Audio Consultant business blasting jazz onto the street.
Also, just a quick note-- this was written on 5/12, before any discussion in class had taken place on asking people in the area to articulate whether or not they think there is a link between music and social justice. I held off on posting because I was trying to get the Sound Cloud links to work (I'm still not sure that they are working, but I'm working on it!).
Hi, Cathryn, the question I have suggested in class is a bit more direct. It asks whether the interviewee sees-hears any relationship between the spotted musical performance, soundscape or both, and social justice.
ReplyDeleteThe sound map idea is also a very nice one, allowing to think of further development in terms of both the empirical research and the conceptual framework. I´d suggest looking first at the Belfast Sound Map created by a team consisting of academics from the Sound Arts Research Center´s at Queen´s University, as well as to their more recent collaboration with the Maré Museum in Rio de Janeiro on a exhibit relating sound and social memory, Som da Maré. To refine your conceptualizations on the use of cartographies such as these as tools to counter hegemonic discourses on space and territory), and for the sake of brevity, I´ll indicate getting acquainted with the work of anthropologists Bruno Latour (France) and Alfredo Berno Wagner (Brasil, among others.
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