Intentional | Audio Identity Blog

Following up from my previous post “Secondary Players in Our Environmental Soundscape” … Grant McCracken has a terrific piece at his website and at the AIGA on the simple beauty of found sounds.

Preview: “The charm of found sounds is that they are not designed. They just happen. Not one thought to make them. No one was trying to anticipate what a middle age anthropologist wants to hear from his Coke machine, dish washer or ThinkPad. And this is charming because these objects become a kind of whiteboard. I don’t have to shift anyone’s meanings to attach my own.”

McCracken continues: “no meanings are always better than moronic ones.” It’s a very well written piece.

I’ve always been a proponent of context sensitivity rather than noise for the sake of noise, or sound for the forced, pushed sense of meaning. (Exhibit Brand A: can’t you hear us? We matter, dammit!) It’s refreshing to find an essay that so thoughtfully uncovers this important point…some things are just better left alone.

– Noel Franus