Jessica Thomson

Porter

Media in Everyday Life

15 May 2014

#SoundSelfie

A sound is what we sense through our sense of hearing. A selfie is what defines

who you personally are or is a self-representation of yourself. The two words come

together in harmony to create a #SoundSeflie. Anything can be included in your

#SoundSelfie, as long as it is composed of sounds that relate to you. A #SoundSelfie is

not just a bunch of random noises or sounds taken from your everyday life and meshed

together just for the fun of it. Rather, it is comprised of noises or sounds that represent

who you are. A couple things I thought critically about when creating my #SoundSelfie

was how I wanted to go about composing my sounds and why I chose the sounds I did in

order to represent myself in a unique way.

When first starting to create my #SoundSelfie, I thought what better way to

represent myself than to record my everyday routine. I started the project one morning

and took the recording device with me wherever I went that day. I basically took a

recording of every sound I heard that day, even if it was the slightest, most discrete

sound. After a day’s worth of recording almost all of the sounds of my day, the next step

was reviewing the sounds and narrowing them down to my top 20 sounds. The sounds I

chose in my top 20 sounds were ones I felt were the most captivating and different. I tried

thinking about my audience and how the community would listen and respond to my

sounds. My intial thought was, “This needs to be displayed in a way so that if a stranger

listens to it, they can get a pretty good understanding who I am.” Much like a plain old

selfie, one glance from a stranger and they can instantly get a gist of who you are.

When I got to the production stage of my #SoundSelfie, I took my 20 sounds and

began organizing them. Most of them were already in chronological order thanks to

recording my day from start to finish, so I did not have to do much there. However, I did

crop some of my sounds to make them standout more in my #SoundSelfie. I also

enhanced the volume to some of my sounds to make them more powerful so you could

really feel the sound. Much like experiencing IMAX in a movie theater, I gave some of

my sounds a realistic, surround-sounding effect. Not only did I edit the technical parts of

my #SoundSelfie, but I wanted to edit it in a way so it flow nicely together to create a

pleasant sounding harmony. It was like producing a song in a way, except with a lot more

meaning and unique depth.

I chose the 20 sounds I did, because I feel like each one best relates and

corresponds to who I am as a person. Each sound included in my #SoundSelfie embraces

not just my everyday way of life, but defines what makes me who I am. My everyday

routine as my #SoundSelfie, are important to me because it best captures what I do and

what I enjoy doing. Reflecting on my #SoundSelfie, this project gave me a new insight

on my everyday life and makes me wonder how mine compares and contrasts to other

#SoundSelfies, like my classmates’ or even people from another country.