The sound of work

So why are we using sound and maybe other senses at Fieldwork?

I've been interested in the different senses and how they effect people for a long time. I'm interested in their use in storytelling after years of producing various radio shows, sound art pieces and music. More recently I've become interested, maybe a bit obsessed with their use in the real world. I am very sensitive to sound and smell, I only have to hear the first note of a particular song to be taken back to happy or unhappy moments in my life. The same could be said for smell, although it's not quite as refined. There are a few smells that get me every time, although I couldn't name them. When I say get me, I mean they create an emotional and often physical feeling. Punch Drunk have been a massive inspiration with their use of sound and smell.

At Fieldwork, alongside the visual capturing, we record the sound of the workplace. We hunt out the small and obvious sounds in the space to help tell the story of the company. The collection of sounds are turned into a soundscape that's added to the ethnographic archive and used during the playback/exhibition days. We experiment with playback on headphones, to enable the listener to focus on the sounds and also by playing back into the space.