Magdalena Kobeszko
Studio 1:Memory
NYC Soundwalk Tour Reflection
When you walk through Times Square you’re bombarded with a million different sights and sounds. For me it’s hard to take in everything at once, my eyes fly around from one place to another and they take in as much as they can no matter how many times I’ve set foot into the same triangular place. Therefore it was even harder to find Max Neuhaus permanent installation. In the center of all the flashing lights and honking horns it was hard to believe that the art piece we were looking for were grates placed in the ground at the North end of Times Square. When walking with my group, we at first could not believe that the sound installation could come from the grates. However once we came to the conclusion that this was Neuhaus art we took a second to stop and really listen. I found the sound coming from the grates extremely interesting. It reminded me a bit of the eerie sound that echos through the subway station and I thought it was amazing that it was a sound that blended in with the rest of the landscape.
Although Manhattan always seems busy it really isn’t. Different places of Manhattan give off different aesthetics. Central Park and Times Square are two extremely different areas that give us two extremely different vibes. For the second portion of our NYC Soundwalk Tour we decided to take a walk through Central Park and do the Central Park Celebrity Audio Tour. When we first walked in we could immediately tell the difference between the two different places. Central Park has many visitors but it’s calm and relaxing compared to the uptight and stressing streets outside of the park. The further we walked in the more serene I felt as well. Two of the places that we visited where the Carousel and the Bethesda Terrace. I observed that both places were easier to find and more fun to spend time at. While sitting down and listening to the audios at both places I took in the green surroundings, the natural atmosphere and got to learn something new that I never knew before. When at Bethesda Terrace my group and I took a while to just sit down and listen to the people and the sounds that came around us just like we took the time to listen to Neuhaus permanent installation.
I really liked the NYC Soundwalk Tour that we did as our class activity. I felt like I got to spend sometime outside of the classroom with my peers and this was a lesson that I felt was very different from what we usually do in the class. I think a change in scenery and the ability to walk around and interact with our senses was something new but still related to our project. Therefore it’d be fun to do another activity similar to this either one on one or as a class. Being able to listen to Neuhaus installation and the different sounds of the city in person rather than straight from a computer was refreshing. Even though I don’t pay attention to these regular sounds everyday the activity gave me a chance to actually step into the sound of my everyday life.
