Methods of investigating Weekly update

week 1

This week I started exploring the small park near my accommodation as the site for my Unit 1 project.

At first, I documented it through photography, trying to record its structure and atmosphere. However, I quickly realised that photography made me feel like an outsider — always observing from behind a lens. The images captured what the park looked like, but not what it felt like.

After reflecting on this, I decided to move away from photography and instead approach the park through my five senses. I began using sketching, note-taking, sound recording and counting footsteps to experience the place in a more direct and embodied way. These methods helped me notice details I would normally ignore, such as how footsteps change rhythm on different surfaces or how the air sounds near the trees.

This shift marked an important turning point: my focus moved from objective documentation to subjective sensory experience. Next week, I plan to analyse which sensory methods are most effective for exploring personal perception and start narrowing my focus.

week 2

Building on last week’s sensory experiments, this week I focused on two main methods — listening and looking.

I designed two small experiments: a Sound Walk and a Visual Walk. During the Sound Walk, I relied only on hearing to navigate the park; during the Visual Walk, I focused only on sight.

I recorded my stops and movements, later mapping them visually. Each mark represented a point where I stopped, and its colour indicated what caught my attention: green for nature, orange for people, yellow for animals and grey for artificial sounds or objects. The size of each shape showed how long I stayed.

Through comparing these maps, I found that vision created fragmented attention — many small stops — while sound created immersion — fewer but longer pauses. This helped me understand that sound has the potential to represent emotional depth and connection.

In the next stage, I will refine the sound-based method and start thinking about how to visualise sound more expressively.

week 3

This week I focused on transforming my sound recordings into a visual form.

After testing several ideas, I decided to create a 1.5-minute listening walk in which I used only hearing to explore my connection with the park. During the walk, I recorded both environmental sounds and my emotional responses.

When reviewing the recordings, I noticed that the captured sound differed from what I remembered — some noises were louder, and some distant sounds were missing. This made me realise that sound recording is objective, while perception is subjective.

To express this difference, I re-edited the audio based on memory and separated each sound layer — birds, wind, footsteps, people — into individual channels. I then used TouchDesigner to visualise the sound, letting the shapes respond to rhythm, intensity and tone. This process turned listening into a visual language.