Drift 1 Overview

In this assignment you will engage the landscape/cityscape with a new and more focused perspective. While gathering raw material for your work, you will gain a deeper understanding of the places you are exploring. The first step in this process of disovery is to ask the question, "what is place?"

In a geographic sense, place is both a location (a physical thing), and a way of looking at that location (a process). As artists, we have the opportunity to re-examine and redefine place by navigating the landscape and cityscape in different ways, discovering new places and fresh aspects of existing places. The best way to do this is by the humble act of walking.

Walking is a way of subverting the typical ways in which we experience the landscape--the essence of “place-ness” is often revealed only when we can experience things "up close and personal."

As artists using the walk as a means of collecting material for our work, we step into the role of flâneur. A product of the rise of the modern city in the early twentieth century, the flâneur walked quietly and anonymously through the urban environment reading the signs and and sounds of the city.

In the 1960s, Guy Debord and the Situationist International were frustrated by the spectacle inherent in modern society, and attempted to resist what they considered a corrupt media culture by using détournement, the remix, to reorder and reinvent authentic cultural experiences. One of their primary tools was the dérive, or drift. As used by Debord and his peers (and, more importantly for our purposes, by contemporary artists), the drift is a method of traversing the landscape in ways completely unanticipated by city officials and urban planners.

Through this walk on Drift 1 you will discover issues, questions, and curiosities that will inspire strategies and content in Drift 2. The sounds of the urban landscape are the primary focus in Drift 1. Sound has an amazing ability to open up our interaction with the environment, suggesting space and place in entirely unique ways. Like landmarks, “soundmarks” are important sonic signposts to help you identify a place. These could be seagulls near the lake or marina, the metallic buzz of car tires over the metal drawbridges, or the chirping of crosswalk signals. Whatever the soundmarks may be, search them out, because they will help you as you map your Drift.

Your Drift area stands as fertile ground where you can function as archaeologist, sifting through and collecting sounds (and, in Drift 2, sights, patterns, textures, movements, and rhythms) of the landscape. You will bring this material back to the studio, review, look for interesting elements, make connections, find surprising juxtapositions, edit, and pull together this data into a focused artistic statement.

Drift 1 Blog Structure

Your Drift 1 Blog will be structured like this:

Post 1: Drift 1 Map (at the bottom of the page)
Post 2: Drift Strategy #1
Post 3: Field Recording #1
Post 4: Field Recording #2
Post 5: Field Recording #3
Post 6: Field Recording #4
Post 7: Field Recording #5 (at the top of the page)

Remember to include the date and time you recorded each sound, along with any technical information about your drift process (microphones, rig setup, software used, etc.). Also, remember that each of your five field recordings must be accompanied by a hand-drawn site map of the location where that sound was recorded.

Drift Strategy

There are several methods you can use to remix the normal way in which you navigate the landscape.

1. Algorithmic Walk

a) Second Left, First Right

b) Third Right, Second Left, Third Right

c) Zig zag: left, right, left, right

2. Roll dice to determine direction: 1-2: left, 3-4: right, 5: reverse direction, 6: cross street.

3. Stopwatch: make a change in direction every 5 minutes.

4. Map Overlay: Walk the streets of Milwaukee while using a map of Boston.

5. Take a hard-copy paper map of Milwaukee and fold it several times, including folds not corresponding to straight square folds. Make direction changes or focus particular attention on points on the map falling in an intersection of folds.

6. Draw a circle on the map. Walk every street inscribed within this circle.

7. Draw a circle on the map. Walk the perimeter of the circle as best you can.

8. Pick a starting point and ending point and draw a straight line between them. Follow this straight line as rigidly as you can.

9. Draw a square on the map. Navigate the area within this square by walking consecutively smaller squares within the original square.

10. Snake Technique: walk on one side of the street in one direction, go the opposite direction on the other side of the street, repeat on the next street over.

11. Create your own . . .

MiniDisc Settings

Here are the basic settings for preparing for MiniDisc Recorder. Copy or print out and carry them with you . . .

Make sure you are in Advanced Mode:
* Press and hold Menu for 2 Seconds.
* Rotate jog wheel until "Option" appears.
* Press "Enter" (middle button).
* Rotate to "Menu Mode," Enter.
* Rotate to "Advanced," Enter.

Make sure your discs are in Hi-MD mode (this will be set automatically if you are using a 1 GB Hi-MD disc):
* Menu
* Option
* Disc Mode
* Hi-MD

Make sure your discs are in Hi-SP mode:
* Menu
* REC Set
* REC Mode
* Hi-SP

Make sure you check your Mic Sensitivity:
* Menu
* REC Set
* Mic Sens
* “High” for general ambience
* “Low” for loud situations or very close mic

Make sure you are in Manual Gain mode while recording:
* Hold down Pause (II) and press REC (+>) (“Record Pause”)
* Menu
* REC Set
* REC Volume
* Manual
* You have to do this each time you hit STOP or power up your recorder.

Make sure you keep the Manual Gain setting at 9 or 10 for most situations. You can scroll up to 11 or 12 for quieter situations, but anything above 13 or 14 stands a good chance of overmodulating and distorting.

 

Drift 1 "Walking Points"

Wear appropriate clothing. Bring your Hi-MD digital sound recorder and DIY mic rig, a MiniDisc (pre-formatted), headphones, at least six fully-charged AA batteries, pens, note pad, watch, water, snacks, sunscreen, and cell phone.

Travel to your designated starting point and go, on foot, for a four-hour long investigative walk. Use the Drift strategy you selected for this Drift. If the weather gets too hot or cold or wet, consider interesting indoor places to continue recording while you recover (indoor locations are acceptable for this project--to an extent). Pay attention to your surroundings, be safe, and watch for cars (especially those inconsiderate drivers who fail to yield to pedestrians). [If walking presents you with a physical challenge, let your section instructor and Glenn know so we can make accommodations.]

If you are taking a digital camera with you (or your cameraphone), try to do only one activity at a time. Don't take snapshots while you're trying to hold your recorder and mics and headphones at the same time. This is not the time to multi-task!

Turn on your sound recorder and place it into Record-Pause (blinking numbers) and then into Manual Gain mode. Listen very attentively (either through the headphones or with your naked ears).

Whenever you detect that you have entered into a different soundscape, record the following information and examples:

(a) On your pad of paper take notes describing where you are. Give the location a name. In addition to drawing prominent features in the location, write down street names, exact addresses of nearby buildings, and names of nearby interesting streets. When no address is available, make note of distances like "100 yards north of green #4 at Lincoln Park Golf Course." Make sketches, diagrams, and/or snapshots. You will use this information to make your maps.

(b) Start your sound recorder and verbally speak the name you have given this location, the date, and the time.

(c) Make at least three "ambience" recordings from three different stationary positions in the location. See if you can find "sweet spots" where the stereo image is interesting. Study the space for surfaces and partial enclosures that could be reflecting and shaping the sounds. For stereo, try "balancing" two aspects of varied interest between the two mics. Ambience changes over time, so be sure to let each of these recordings continue for at least three or four minutes, preferably longer. Do not move the mics when recording stereo ambience because it blurs subtle clues about the space and its acoustics.

(d) In the same location walk around and listen for as many distinct local sounds as you can find and isolate with extreme close micing. In urban setttings, these sounds can possess high and/or low pitches, textured rhythms, phasing drones, and blends of tones in harmonic chords. In natural habitats, local sound effects can include different animals and a large variety of natural events. In both cases, sound effects should be mic'd close. Experiment with different mic positions to affect balance and stereo image. These recordings should also run for several minutes each, preferably longer. Remember, storage space is cheap. Better to record more often than you think you need, and for longer than you think you need.

Continue on your Drift. Stop to create both ambient and close-up recordings whenever you enter a new sound environment. Don't forget to make a map of each new location. You should try to to document at least 8-12 sites during your four-hour walk. If you don't come across a location that sounds different after 15 minutes of walking, stop and record anyway. You may be surprised to discover that something that seemed boring in the field turns out very interesting upon playback. Your goal is to have well over an hour of stereo sound recorded by the end of your Drift (remember that your Hi-MD discs can hold up to 7 hours of CD-quality uncompressed audio). You can continue for longer than four hours if you wish.

Technical Precautions: To change the disc, first press "Pause" and "Stop" and let the "Saving to Disc" routine continue to completion with the recorder perfectly still. Insert a fresh battery with each new disk. When recording, watch your manual record levels very carefully. Make sure the recorder's Mic Sensitivity option (Menu>Rec>Set>Sens) is set to "high" unless you are recording in a very loud location like next to traffic or loud machinery.

Back in the Studio

Transfer your sounds from your NH700 using SonicStage on your PC computer at home or on one of the four campus PCs available for this purpose: Mitchell Hall Room 353 and B-18. For transferring you will need your Hi-MD recorder, USB cable for the recorder (the black one), Hi-MD MiniDiscs with your Drift recordings on them, and two or four blank CD-Rs for copying and carrying away your transferred sound files (PDF tutorial here).

Make a copy of the converted WAV files onto your external drive or on a DATA format CD-R for backup.

Create an Audacity Project folder as described in the tutorial and set your User Preferences.

Play through your Drift 1 sound recordings in Audacity. When you come to a section of a recording that seems interesting, scroll across (select) the section and export it as a full resolution WAV file. Use a descriptive name for the WAV file, but do not use spaces or special characters. Log your activity in a notebook so you can keep track of your recordings and your process.

Store these WAV files in your Exported Sound Files folder (you will edit these selections later to 20 seconds for your blog).

Find and export as many segments as you can. These exported sound files are candidates for the top five from which to upload to your Drift 1 blog.

Upload them to your iPod or media player. Listen to them to see which of them hold up to repeated listening. Make notes about mic bumps, wind flutters, or other undesirable parts that could be removed, along with sections that might be squeezed together.

We encourage editing to bring out the strengths of a recording and to hide flaws that detract from appreciating the situation or subject matter. We do not allow special effects or extensive multi-tracking on your Drift 1 field recordings.