Originally, my team’s concept for our project was to incorporate both the sensations of loss of sight and loss of sound in the same installation, which would involve using the projector to display loud images without sound while the viewer watched inside a glass box, the second part covering the box and allowing the viewer to simply listen to sounds through headphones. However, we were worried that the direction we were taking was too literal, so we simplified it down to one experience – loss of sound.
We also decided to take a more artistic approach with our videos that we would display. We opted to use three laptop screens as opposed to the projector so truly immerse the viewer in film and image, as they were surrounded by the three laptops. Our videos, available below, were short and played on a loop, featuring clips (a combination of ones found on YouTube and also ones we filmed ourselves) that we thought evoked a sensation or desire for sound – which was, obviously, eliminated for the viewer. Originally we were only going to use clips from around New York City, but again, we opted for a less literal approach.
We stuck with our original idea of using a box to create the sense of being in a “bubble,” which is how all of our team members felt during our own experiences without hearing. We kept wanting to look around and see everything, much how the viewer desires to when faced with three separate videos. The visual distractions become hectic and almost overpowering, and all that is available to you is the muffled white noise of the earplugs, which we also tried to emulate with a sound recording played to the viewer during their experience (which is also available below).
LIST OF SOURCES FOR AUDIO AND VISUAL CLIPS:
