sound, architecture, and perception
auditour is a research project, exploring the role sound plays in our architecture, our bodies, and our daily lives. Taken from an Anglo-French word that refers to an examiner or hearer, auditour is a nod to the true relationship between sound and the body: When we listen, we perceive the world. The same root appears in the words audio, aural, and auditory. This title is also a pun; this research is an audit into the practices and conventions that govern sounds in cities and spaces.
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This research unfolded over many years, from my perspective as a trained musician. Through my studies, I learned how Opera singers train their voices to emphasize certain formants, or specific frequency bands, to better project their unamplified voices in a hall. I learned how Bach may have composed his fugues in response to the shorter reverberation time of the Thomaskirche, in contrast to the heavy, spacious sounds of gothic cathedrals. As a clarinet student, I discovered how the large practice halls in my college amplified the dark woody tone of my clarinet's lower register. My playing style, and indeed my own body, responded to the acoustic conditions. The space itself became an instrument of sorts.
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Image: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-25414-0045 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons
Audio: user:Sesquialtera II, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Binaural Office Recording, 2024, Jonathan Nelson
As I grew older and made the professional shift to Architecture, I found everyday spaces to be flat and disconnected from the human body. I became exhausted by the 200hz whine of the air handling unit in my office: it drowned out the sounds of life, the sounds of clicking mouses, keyboards and conversation ricocheting from the other half of the office. I felt nauseated by tinny music in the grocery store, punctuated by advertisements for flu shots and prescription refills, read aloud by an anonymous, earnest, overemphatic voice. I shouted to be heard on the sidewalk, past the throngs of hermetically sealed drivers who shielded their own bodies from the discomforts of the public sphere. I questioned the relationship these sounds have with the spaces they serve. I questioned the power an acoustic environment bears on the bodies occupying such spaces.
With the aid of binaural sound recordings, the research on this website addresses questions centered around power, neutrality, territory, and silence. My goal is to re-frame sound around the human body, and help us all to understand how deeply interconnected listening is to our lived experience.
This research is situated in a North American City, Seattle, for a variety of reasons. For one, this is the place I live. More importantly however, Seattle is burdened with both the crises and opportunities of the 21st Century. The dominance of the automobile, the privatization of the public sphere, and the rise of social isolation all threaten the quality of urban life. Yet Seattle is in the process of a once-in-a-lifetime infrastructure transformation, and the investments into our public sphere will impact the soundscape of future. What do we want Seattle to sound like?
My hope for you, listener, is for you to hear to the world with curiosity, and imagine the rich, abundant, acoustic environments possible in our lifetimes.
Binaural Alaskan Way Recording, 2024, Jonathan Nelson