In collaboration with Maryia Markhvida & Dror Margalit
Special thanks to Zeynep Elif Ergin
This sound piece was an exploration into interactive storytelling through a combination of synthetic, computer-generated sounds, live-recorded ambient sounds and the human voice.
The initial idea to use computer-generated sounds originated from Maryia’s previous experience in creating different frequency sounds using Python scripts. Some of the sounds were completely random, some followed certain scales and others followed a normal distribution. However, all the sounds contained a level of chaos and randomness which became the driving force behind our project.
In the past three years, all of us have endured an unprecedented time of uncertainty, chaos and disorder. We wanted to create a piece which incorporated those themes using the sounds Maryia can produce, but the “beeps and boops” on their own felt too foreign and unrelatable; we were missing the human element. Therefore, we knew we had to bring in a real story. That story was graciously shared by our friend Zeynep Elif Ergin as she reminisced about a time in her life where she faced uncertainty and chaos.
“Describe a time in your life when you faced extreme uncertainty or chaos, and how did the situation or the way you felt about it evolve over time? How did it resolve or not?”
The interview question for Elif
With our story in hand, we manipulated the computer-generated sounds to create an acoustical backdrop that complemented the voiceover. We further layered recorded ambient noises from the world to breeze life into the relatively sterile soundscape we have created.
Along the creation journey, we had the idea to make the listening experience more interactive for the audience by incorporating a simple button that affects the way the different elements of the story are heard. By hovering the cursor over the center box, you hear Elif’s story. Otherwise by default, only the computerized soundscape is played. In this sense, the audience is in control of the auditory journey they wish to embark upon.
The creation process for this project was somewhat chaotic in and of itself. We had the different pieces to the story but they only came together at the end. When the elements conflicted each other the task became balancing levels and sequencing tracks in such a way that enhanced the story, but didn’t overwhelm it. We wanted an experience that was both acoustically engaging and faithful to the story’s owner.