Drift 1 Assessment

1. Describe two situations that aggravated, bothered, shocked or otherwise stressed you during Drift 1.
When I started on my drift I noticed that only traffic sounds were apparently the only thing I could really hear. I began to look closer into sounds away from the street but could still have cars going by and would sometimes mess up my recordings. The second problem that became frustrating was when I walked through my drift algorithm once (left, left, right, right, straight, left, right) and still hadn’t recorded an interesting sound. I started to get stressed thinking I wasn’t going to be able to find some quality sounds. Eventually after walking far enough I found things to make interesting sounds.

2. Describe, with details, two situations during Drift 1 in which you felt unusually peaceful, at ease, or contemplative.
I think the first time I truly felt peaceful was when I got away from all the busier roads near campus. It was a relief to walk by houses that had maybe people talking but the sound of cars driving by was almost completely eliminated which set my mind at ease. The other time(s) I felt at ease was when I was actually making my recordings. Two that stand out are the birds and the children on the porch. Just sitting and listening is very peaceful to me and I would get a chance for 4-5 minutes to just relax while my microphone recorded everything going on in the world while I could just think more deeply about my surroundings.

3. Describe three surprises or unexpected situations you encountered on your Drift and in the days that followed. The surprise could stem from your expectations that conflicted with "on the ground" realities, cultural or social issues of which you were previously unaware, feelings and reactions that you did not expect to have, appearances and soundings of things you did not expect, good or bad outcomes of "on the spot" decisions you had to make, or the discovery of "deeper" realities in the materials you brought home. (Again, skip anything technology-related!)
The first surprise I guess you can call it, was when I asked a woman to return her lawn mower. I was actually surprised with how creepy she suspected me of being because the idea of recording sounds was so unusual to her. The next day I just had to laugh about the whole situation and wondering how many people she told about being recorded while pushing her lawn mower. Another surprise actually came when listening back to my recordings. During the time of recording I was listening to a specific sound, but during the recording I would hear other sounds that I wasn’t aware of at the time. This made me realize how much our ears tune out things that we don’t want to hear. The final reaction I had derived from drifting as a whole. When the project first was presented I honestly didn’t understand why anyone would ever do this. Afterwards I realized how peaceful and just separated from the real world I became. The entire time I felt that I wasn’t a person in the real world just a spectator listening in which was really cool.

4. Describe your favorite experience, situation, place, or recollection from your Drift. Be specific about what happened, how you felt, how you reacted, and why you think this particular experience affected you so much.
My favorite experience of the entire drift definitely came on finding my final sound of a leaf blower. At first the sound was coming from a yard with a huge fence up. I decided that it was a perfect opportunity to really listen to the sound in order to guess what the object making the sound was. I remember listen and ruling the obvious things first that it was a machine, with a constant engine that was moving around. Then I took my guess of it being a leaf blower, and walked around the house to see the answer. I felt excited when I found out I was correct because I felt that I had learned something from listening my entire walk and felt that sound now had new meaning to me.