Pressure Project 3
Posted: December 10, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Assignment – Use audio to tell a story that is important to your culture (broadly defined)
I actually did this project twice. I got a request to not share my first project online for privacy reasons, so I chose a new story and re-did the project.
The story posted here is arguably among the most important stories worldwide over the last 30 years. Maybe I’m being provocative. Maybe not.
Resources
Blackhole
Youtube
DTMF generator from venea.net
Logic Pro
QRS Reverb
Channel EQ
Score
The six failed connections with variable wait times between dial and busy signal
The successful connection on the event attempt
The agonizing wait
The welcome
The first contact
Spindown
Valuation
I want to provide a realistic experience through sound of logging on to the Internet in the early days. I captured the sounds of that might have been in my household as I was connecting on a Friday night.
I wanted to convey the frustration of trying to dial into a crowded phone line and the uncertainty of never knowing whether the next attempt would hit, the ambiance of sitting at a stationary machine where you were at the mercy of the nearest phone line, the excitement of finally establishing a successful connection, and most of all, just how slow it all was (within the confines of my time limit — it was actually much slower to sign onto CompuServe in 1996).
I also included hard drive sounds because 1996 computers were loud.
I think this is an important story (though I hesitate to say whether it’s an important story to tell) because in the modern world we are perpetually connected to the Internet. You probably encounter it within the first few minutes of each day and within the last hour before falling asleep. In the early days there was a delayed gratification. “Going online” was an event. You couldn’t take for granted that your friends would be there at the same time as you. And what you sacrificed to go online was in some ways more clear. Your time. Your phone line (unless you were lucky enough to be a two-line family… we were not). The opportunity to be in other locations doing different things. Today the friction to go “eyes on” is so low that we aren’t even necessarily conscious of it. But we must be certain that the sacrifices are still there.
Performance
This was never performed in public. It is an online exclusive.