Writing 2: Scales of Social Space

 

Writing 2: Scales of Social Space

I disagree with Michael Bull’s statement that listening to chosen music enables iPod users to focus in on themselves, enabling users to clear a space for thought, imagination and mood maintenance. On the contrary, I believe it becomes more difficult to construct a narrative with competing vibrations in one’s ears and head. Music is vibration. In the silence, we are better able to generate ideas, disseminate meaning, find solace and solutions, and sometimes simply ruminate on the pain. It is a natural process of identity, ownership, growth and healing in relationship to our individual place in time and space. Further, I disagree with Bulls assertion that “The random nature of the sounds of the street does not produce the correct configuration or force to successfully produce or create the focusing of thoughts in the desired direction.” 

I can wholeheartedly agree though with Sennet that uses of this technology enable people to transform the site of their experience into a sanctuary and Daniel’s statement as well that “There are certain playlists that I have put specifically together to fit certain moods (e.g. childhood, melancholy, road trips, party, dinner etc.). A song can transport me to any time and place in my life in a matter of seconds.” This references the already well-established universal effect of the relationship between music and memory. However, regarding Bull’s statement, this in no way validates the ability of music to generate thought or prohibit it by the myriad sounds of the street. 

Instead, Bull’s research subject, Tracy, affirms how cocooning creates control, “I didn’t realize how much I yearn for control and probably peace and quiet. Strange since I’m blasting music in my ears. The MP3 digital music revolution has given me some control back.” Another research subject, Terry, affirmed, “I can’t overestimate the importance of having all my music available all the time. It gives me an unprecedented level of emotional control over my life. “

It is bold of Bull to assert that, “If users live within their chosen musical soundtrack, then I argue that they attempt to reclaim the significance of their experience of time precisely in those areas of daily life that have previously been perceived to be of little significance.” I would argue that a person is not necessarily reclaiming the significance of their experience by listening to a chosen soundtrack, but merely experiencing preferred and pleasing entertainment that distracts from a normal daily experience. The idea that people have now developed an incredibly short attention span and feel the need to be constantly entertained reveals a different premise, one that supports entertainment over significance.

Although Bull states in No Dead Air! The iPod and the Culture of Mobile Listening, that most empirical research involving the use of music technologies focused solely on domestic consumption in fixed locales, suggesting that media effects and its influence “stops at the front door,” I believe music has always found us wherever we go, especially the ubiquitous car radio. Not only has domestic use taught people how to fill time and spaces throughout the day’s activities, but now 18 years after Bull’s article, we see how the mobile phone has increasingly, overwhelmingly, expanded on its influence and invaded not only the consumer’s private thoughts, but engagement in social settings as well. Therefore, the attempted exclusion of all forms of unwanted intrusion do not constitute a successful strategy for urban and personal management or a reinscribing of personal space through the consumption of personalized music, but merely a diversion from unwelcome thoughts or feelings at hand, and a bit of company on the journey.

Considering the contemporary urban experience and relating this premise to the graffiti artists and bombers in Style Wars, my argument holds that instead of looking for distraction or external entertainment, these individuals are contemplating, moving outside of their cocoon, their pain and frustration, taking action, expressing themselves in the making of their graffiti art, however unpopular, inappropriate or illegal, to voice Inner turmoil or creative inspiration. They are engaging in the community and wider world. Michael Bull may want to reconsider how dependence on a technology of MP3 players gives users unprecedented power of control over their experience of time and space by managing their mood and orientation to space through the use of personalized music, in comparison to the Style Wars bombers whose use of mobile sound technologies truly informs us about how users attempt to ‘inhabit’ the spaces within which they move and how they achieve a level of autonomy over time and place through the creation of not a privatized auditory bubble, but a seamless auditory, visual, and kinesthetic experience that the phrase “No Dead Air” fully encompasses.