Page 79 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

getting what we want done. Therefore, we are tending towards a system where all activities involve speaking because it is able to keep
pace with people’s lives, even in total and utter darkness (Irwin, 2009). Silvia is well aware of this, as she is used to sending spoken messages via WhatsApp. There are already applications that can convert spoken messages into text. This is a very useful tool for writers, who can dictate to their devices wherever they are. The same is true of voice-controlled devices which are becoming popular and which everyone will have in their homes within a few years’ time (Amazon Echo, Google Home...). In the future we will use these devices to listen to various expressions: radio, podcasts, audiobooks, music... All we need to do is give a simple spoken order and these devices can reproduce what we want. Sound will be a central part of the process, and we will therefore analyse it at length in the following section.
Sound
Silvia is well aware that sound, like the voice,
is central to digital orality. Sound envelops and surrounds us and accompanies us in all our daily activities. It furthermore plays an essential role in our subsistence: it informs us of the nature, space and distance of objects. And it is always subject to periodicity. Sound is ephemeral, the audible is fleeting, always subject to a particular period of time. The same characteristic can be attributed to audiovisual communication, though not to written communication. As the message is perceived and processed as a continuum
with sound, the process of comprehension is more difficult to control. When we listen, we cannot choose the speed at which we receive the message, nor can we decide to stop at a particular point. However, today this is no longer a problem. With recorded sound products, such as podcasts, listeners can stop at any time and go back; and in some applications they can even choose different listening speeds. Podcasts, recorded audio files available on the Internet
to be listened to or downloaded and with the possibility of subscription, have done much to restore the importance sound enjoys today.
As an audio file, a podcast can feature all the kinds of sound content imaginable. In Spain the Cadena Ser radio station recently started up Podium Podcast.8 In addition, the leading platforms iTunes,9 Spreaker,10 Stitcher11 and Libsyn12 offer podcasts on any subject, naturally including culture and art. It is sufficient merely to download an aggregator onto our mobile
to be able to enjoy them. And if we decide
to produce them to publicise our trademark, company, cultural products or services, Podcast Pro holds all the keys to doing so.13 For sound is an ideal means of promoting culture, at least for three reasons (Rodero, 2005). The first is that sounds have the power to create mental images when they occur in isolation, without the image. When Silvia listens to a fiction podcast, she has to supply the missing images by picturing them in her mind. The images she creates are unique and her own. The processing of sound is thus a highly gratifying activity in which Silvia actively engages by producing mental images based on the stimulus of listening and on her own experi- ence. The second reason why sound is relevant to an artwork is its ability to move the spectator. Sound by nature and the voice and music in particular have a powerful expressive force that arouses different emotions in the listener. In fact, music alone is capable of creating or modifying moods. The third characteristic of sound is
the realism listeners sense when they immerse themselves in a good sound production. When all the elements of sound (voice, music and sound effects) are well combined, listeners can feel they are inside the story or the scene that is being described. Two elements of sound greatly influence this sensation of realism: sound effects and sonorous planes. Sound effects allow us to listen to real sounds (a door, the noise of traf- fic...), whereas sonorous planes introduce space and help us establish the position of people and objects. Many present-day sound productions already include binaural sound – that is, they
AC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 2018
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Digital Trends in Culture