You look through a window of an arcade as they are starting to open. Through that window you see a new game that you haven’t played before in all of its glory. You hear the beeps, bloops, and music that are starting up to get you excited. As you turn around, you got your best friend with you that has a pocketful of quarters that he got from doing chores for allowance. You think to yourself… this is the best day of your life.
I love the arcade and seeing the photo from “Old Video Games at the Manitou Arcade” by ilovemypit makes me want to go back. Seeing the variety of games in that photo makes me think of that moment in life from 1997. The audio of, “retro last level video game loop” by emceeciscokid, provides that sound like I was just in the arcade. The audio aides the photo like the photo is alive and you are about to embark on a fun adventure at one of those machines.
If you were to visit Austin, you’d most likely find yourself crossing the South Congress Bridge to reach one destination or another. Between the months of March and September, you would be met with hundreds of people flocking to this same bridge, Lady Bird Lake below, and the surrounding Ann and Roy Hike-and-Bike Trail. Without much knowledge of the city, you might question whether or not the live music capital of the world was about to put on a grand show, but in actuality, hundreds of people are about to spend their night waiting for the world’s largest urban bat colony to fly out and begin their nightly feast of bloodsucking mosquitoes.
Comprised of primarily female bats and their newborn pups, the colony communicates to one another using chirping noises similar to the ones heard in the selected Australian Bat South Australia audio. Digifishmusic’s recording enhances buhny’s photo by helping put into perspective a portion of the ambience one would experience when gathering around the guano infested bridge during a warm Texas sunset.
Although I no longer live in Austin, the two years my husband and I spent in the city were life giving. Lady Bird Lake, renamed after Lady Bird Johnson, is not only the home to the South Congress bridge, but it memorializes our time not only growing academically, but also growing as a family.
When I embarked on this assignment, I knew immediately that I wanted to find a premodern manuscript image to use, because I have a background in European medieval history and love book history. Fortunately for all of us, there are thousands of digitized manuscripts online, and many of the holding institutions enter the scans into the public domain or share them under Creative Commons licenses.
While looking through the holdings of the Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland, I came across the fabulous gentleman pictured. Our bold knight is the frontispiece of a lengthy chronicle about the convocation of the Swiss Confederacy and the subsequent Burgundian Wars (1474-77). He seems paused mid-motion, as if he heard a sound, so I searched for a Creative Commons sound effect that might suit that mood. I settled on a short piece of modern music played on French horn, which is rallying and optimistic but also, to my ear, clearly excerpted from a larger work.
Ho-nee-um Pond by Richard Hurdgives the viewer the feeling of a long cold winter. The image almost makes you feel cold just looking at it. I enjoy landscape images but this one gave me pause. I appreciate the glistening appearance of the lake and all the degrees of grey and white this image has. It gives the impression of being alone in a vast quietness, with nothing around for miles.
Jet Fueled Vixen by Kevin MacLeod caught my attention because of the intensity and momentum of the music. With the harsh sound of the track it can feel almost sinister. Giving a feeling that it belongs in a movie right before the big scene starts.
While the picture gives a cold but serene feeling, adding music with the image changes what one perceives. It almost tells a story…
The storm has passed and there is no sound but your own breathing, something is coming. The snow muffles the sound of who or what is coming from beyond the trees. Crisp cold air chaps the skin as the cold seeps up the legs. The realization hits, you are alone and something is coming.
Without a sense of intrigue, the world feels dull. Maybe that’s what draws some of us to mystery novels and true crime. Myself, I love to create stories full of drama and twists of all kinds. I have always been drawn to works of all kinds that draw up my interest in the mystical and fantastic and inspire me to craft stories surrounding them. It is no different with these two works.
Ben Watkin‘s photo, “Cat,” captures a cat looking into the distance from below, the lighting and blur in the background creating a sense of melancholy and mystery while Hans Zimmerman‘s song, “Rainy Mystery,” creates an ambiance that feels like the background music for a drama. These two works join to create an unwritten dramatic story that is up to the viewer to compose. Overall, they are a good example of how two separate works can inspire and draw up our own creative ways of interpreting and shifting our surroundings into fiction. On their own, the former is just a photo of a cat and the latter is just a musical piece, but together they join and weave a dramatic story.
Just two weeks ago, I found myself staring at a playground located directly on top of a bomb shelter. The juxtaposition of this scene struck me. The playground was a representation of innocence, childhood, youthful joy, and life, Yet, it sat atop a building that represented fear, death, threat, and destruction. This playground was located in an Israeli community only a couple of miles outside of the Gaza strip, right between two lands that hate one another. I got to see this when I visited Israel over New Year’s. I was reminded of this when I saw the photo above.
When I imagine that same photo in my hometown, happy feelings arise. It brings nostalgia as I remember my childhood, dreams of the future for the kids playing, and peace as I look at the sunset. Yet, when I remember a similar playground in Israel, I feel sad, angry, and anxious. This is because context matters. The context for the Israeli children I met was a playground located a mile away from people who wish you were not there, in a political climate of tension that has been building for years, and in a town where you only have 8 seconds between when the alarms go off and a bomb hits. I grow sad to think that these kids might not make it to be an adult and angry at the lack of peace in the world. I remember one man sharing how his house doesn’t have doors so his children can easily run when a bomb alarm goes off, and I do not feel the same peace as I look at the sunset in that photo.
Those feelings of fear, stress and sorrow are the same feelings that arise when I look at the picture above of innocent children playing paired with the sound of sirens and bombs in the background. It is a pairing that feels like it should not exist, yet unfortunately, it does. Yet, this does not take away the beauty of the image or diminish the joy of the children in that photo. Instead, it highlights the strength and bravery that so many people have to continue living their lives despite the danger around them. The ability to find joy amidst a world of conflict. It is truly beautiful to see a sunset and children playing with hope for a better future rather than fear of the present.
I remember the tour guide saying, “I often ask myself why I have not left yet, but then my children tell me that this is their home and they don’t want to leave. And that is why I choose to stay.”
We’re all busy, between work, school, and general life, and it’s really hard to escape the everyday noises, literally and figuratively. I choose to pair a beautiful night sky in the forest with the sound of deleting messages as a story of disconnecting. I imagine hiking out to this wonderful spot, selecting all from my inbox, and deleting, them so I can enjoy the sounds and sights of nature. I was drawn to this image because it’s simple, yet what it displays is so complex, trees of likely decades, if not centuries old, and the stars, whos light has burned bright for thousands of years to reach us here on Earth.
Taken alone, the image is calm and serene and one might think of the sound of the wind rustling through the trees, or crickets, or even the hoot of an owl. The modern sound of a message deletion, which is a bit robotic, sticks out as a contrast to the natural wonder of the photo.
This is a reminder to us all, including myself, to take moments to enjoy what’s around us and put down the phone. I know I need this reminder as a nudge, that we’re all in this together, and it’s ok if we don’t respond immediately to all the notifications on our phones, sometimes we need to step out into nature and really focus on the stars and our place among them.
As an avid gamer, I decided to use my past experience for this weeks lab assignment. There are times when you try to play a video game that maxes out the performance of the PlayStation 4, and when the game is about to start, you hear the fans of the PlayStation 4 kick off loudly like a plane about to take off on the runway. Most computer users would probably know what I’m talking about, because it sometimes happen when you try to run a heavy program on your computer, you hear the fans loudly making noise to ensure the computer is kept cool while it runs this hefty program. Looking at the picture, I don’t think anyone would expect that audio to be what accompanies it.
This PlayStation 4 image by Evan-Amos that I came across is perfect, as it shows the console in its full form and lets everyone easily know what it is. After searching long for a good sound of a plane taking off, I finally found the one created by jone_oost which perfectly matches the exact sound and rhythm that I’m trying to portray. Together, they create the story that I am trying to tell.
I’m a Boston Terrier owner first and foremost. My Boston Terrier’s name is Buster and we work with the Boston Terrier Rescue of Florida.
I came across this photo of a Boston Terrier by Michael Gwyther-Jones and instantly thought this was the facial expression a Boston Terrier would make if they were getting beamed up by an alien ship. I thought pairing the dogs bewildered look with the tractor beam sound by shimsewn would capture the moment perfectly.
Overall, the pairing of the tractor beam sound enhances the slightly confused but curious look on the Boston Terrier’s furry face.
In a world of constant movement, it is easy to miss subtle specifics. Having a scene easy on the eyes in the form of color, softness, and vastness unfolding in front of you becomes the main allure to “Wetlands Sunset.” I felt in only putting a small section of sound, nothing too incredibly long, the viewer, and listener gets a small piece from “Kauai Rain Ocean Birds“, this particular :34 second part was called “Kauai Shama thrush”, of what can interrupt a hectic day and provide calm; just a small portion enough that individuals might want to check out more from this artist.
Just enough of a sample exists to slow your day, a small enough excerpt to invite individuals to want to check out more from this artist. I like the concept of small portion to lead to further investigation based on interest. Sometimes all it takes is a small portion of something to realize to enhance your life, a little investigation of acquiring more will help your life be even better.
