Module 4.1 Project Proposal
In our first discussion from Module 1 we attempted to find out how music can be approached as a technology of the self. We talked about the power of music to evoke and heighten emotions, to shape or change moods. Then we focused specifically on the relationship between music and space, and established this problem as our primary learning objective. Music, as we all agreed on the basis of our personal experience, has the capacity to transform perceptions of space and time. Also, by taking our personal music collection with us out on the street via MP3 players or walkmans, music can be employed as a means of defining private and personalized zones (“bubbles”) amidst public space. In consent with Michael Bull’s observations on the influence of music on our perceptions of the world around and its “aesthetisizing” potential, we mentioned that music often produces a kind of a cinematic experience of the world, by serving both as a soundtrack and as a colour filter giving the observed the nuance of our own emotions. Our personal experiences with music, shared during the pre-discussion, also significantly overlapped with the personal accounts given by DeNora’s interviewees. The author prompts her subjects of investigation to define their moods and emotions, to analyze and deconstruct their experiences, to explain exactly how the impact of music feels and works, how a specific effect of music is produced in them.
Understanding of the ways in which the personal mechanisms of perception operate is central to the practices of various commercial organizations. In hotels, fashion stores and bars, along with the visually transmitted message of interior design, music is employed as a co-element in constructing the image of a place. Awareness of the set of subconscious associations linking various types of music with a specific group, community or a class, cement music as the founding element in creating the identity of interior space.
How is music strategically employed in constructing our experience of interior space?
In our investigations we will focus explicitly on hotels, fashion stores, supermarkets and bars. In places of this kind music often serves as a form of interior design in itself, a type of acoustic architecture which has the power to influence consumer behavior and to trigger an impulse for identification. Our explorations on this issue are centered on the realization that aural and visual aspects work in unison to define various cultural identities.
The materials for our project consist of a selected list of academic sources, as well as interviews from the Muzak decision-makers of Kruisherenhotel, the H&M store, Albert Heijn and random people. We will consider the different kinds of effect scaused by different kind of muzak within various surroundings.
