Janet Cardiff Response

The Janet Cardiff radio interview seemed to me to be more of an audio infomercial. The purpose was obviously to promote and advertise Janet Cardiff' walks. The interview allowed you to learn a little bit about Cardiff's intentions and how she acheives her goals. The things I learned from the interview that I thought were interesting were how she records the sounds so that they feel more intimate to the listener. I like how she described how she makes you feel like the sounds are actually surrounding you. She says she acheived this because her recordings allow her to magnify and enhance the sounds that may otherwise be ignored if you were walking on your own outside. I also thought it was interesting how she said that she researches the history of the areas she takes you through on her walks, because it allows her to give the location its own personal touch. The thing I do not like about her walks is her voice. Her "dead flat tone of her voice" to me is kind of spooky. To me, it seems like the voice of somebody who would be doing a reading of a sexy romance novel... These were my thoughts after listening to the interview.

In response to Janet Cardiff's project for Whitechapel Gallery in London, she definetly uses the three level spatial structure. Throughout the peice, her voice is always in the foreground, normally in conjunction with footsteps. Sometimes though, she brings other sounds into the foreground. I also like how she brings sounds that were once in the background to the middle ground as you seemingly get closer to that noise. When she first goes outside, she starts with distant waves and voices in the background, birds in the middle ground, and footsteps in the foreground. Then she has a random helicopter come to the foreground for a few seconds. She then continues to have footsteps in the foreground. Then random weird music makes its way to the foreground. Birds continue to be in the middle ground. Then new weird music begins in the foreground. Footsteps stop and the birds move into the background. Dogs bark in the middleground. Footsteps start again and move back to the foreground and the music stops. You then hear an airplane in the foreground and birds in the middle ground. A voice giving a lecture then becomes the foreground. Footsteps start walking away from the lecture and a childs voice becomes the foreground and then fades away. Waves that are in the background slowly get louder as footsteps continue. The waves then become the middle ground and then fades away to the background. Running water then becomes the foreground and then footsteps. Waves then make there way back to the foreground. Footsteps start up again as the foreground, waves become the middle ground. The footsteps, still foreground, sound different as if they are crunching leaves in a forest. There is an ambient background. Birds then begin to chirp in the background. Suddenly you are inside and you hear footsteps on wood. A machine recording becomes the foreground. Then you are back outside and waves and birds become the middle ground. Birds fade to the background. Music then starts and stop. Footsteps continue to be the foreground. Waves become louder and go to the middle ground and then the foreground. Birds are in the middle ground and waves eventually fall back to the background. As previously stated, Janet's voice is always part of the foreground. Sometimes she has a man whispering that becomes part of the foreground. I think that her use of three-level spatial structure allows the listener to gain a sense of distance. The louder the particular sounds, the closer they feel. When the sounds are in the background, you can tell that you are far away from them. Also, after listening to the whole walk, her voice actually kind of grows on you. Ha!