Sound as Research (wood panel with various materials)

For my Sound as Research project, I chose New Port Path station. The reason why I chose that place was because I go there everyday to go to school, to go to Manhattan, so I thought it would be interesting to find out something new from the place I barely cared about in daily lives.

To know its history and useful information that could help me visualizing the place, I searched various articles on the Internet and visited the place several times. Also, I recorded the different percentage of people from time to time. Then I reflected that documentation into my first visualized piece.

For my sound piece, I used the memory of late night visiting in rainy days. There were only a few people waiting for the train to get back home. Some of them were listening to music, some of them were texting to somebody and some of them were just sitting on the chair and closed their eyes. The place was quiet and at that moment I felt that sometime public places could be private places. I wanted to convey the atmosphere that I felt at that moment so I tried hard to find the right sound file that could help my peers to sympathize with me.

In the Seminar class I read an article about an accident happened in New Port PATH station. A 23-year-old woman was struck between the train and the rail and got injured. After reading this article, I came up with Korea’s subway screen door system that could prevent potential accidents and suicide. Also, some screen doors have poem on its side so exhausted workers could refresh themselves by reading those poems while waiting for the train. I thought it would be great if the New Port PATH station also has this screen door system. Therefore, I decided to make the simulation of it and that’s how my final project was created.

From the Sound as Research project, I learned how to organize the information that I found during the research and visualize it. Also, I learned the different ways of it from my peers. I think each place has its own characteristic. That  characteristic influences people directly and indirectly. It was really interesting to see the difference between the places that peers chose. From the critique, I liked that I could hear other people’s thought about my piece. Everyone’s perspectives are different, so even when people see the same piece, they may have conflicting opinions. In that situation, I keep my own perspective, but at the same time, accept different opinions of other people to arrive at a point of compromise. This point of compromise eventually becomes a new perspective of my own. I believe this attitude expands my limited perspective, makes it more diverse and fertile, so more people can sympathize with it. In that regard, I thought this project was a great opportunity to see my art piece in other peoples’s point of view. Also, this project really broadened my perspective. I realized once again, as a student it brings about so much more opportunities to open up and listen to other people.