Experiencing non-places through soundscapes.

Abstract

Motorways, airports and supermarkets; French anthropologist, Marc Augé called them nonplaces

to mark their transience and the large amount of time we spend at such spaces in this

day and age. Essentially, he deems them of little significance to be considered as

anthropological places. (Augé 1995)

While his observations are accurate and valid, meaning can be created at such transitory

spaces and they can possess qualities that anthropological places have. Through the physical

representation of a specific non-place, this project aims to create a poetic landscape that

represents the delicate and multi-layered nature of experiencing places and its people. And

also to find pleasure from silvers of human behaviour that can be observed at these highly

transient yet solitary sites. People are not just moving creatures but human beings with

emotional lives.

The final outcome of this project presents concepts of the individual and the collective in a

specific non-place, which is the bus-interchange. The collective human behaviour can be

observed and experienced unconsciously. It is represented by visualisation of the sounds that

were recorded and recreated through the paper sculpture. The individual is represented by

poetic anecdotes of the happenings at the non-place.

The aim is simple. It is to extract the often neglected and unpleasurable element – which is

sound – from an environment and to use it to represent a physical landscape of the non-place.

And also, to encourage viewers to find their little pleasures in what might seem as the

mundane process of commuting and everyday life.