Assignment: Sound/Video Mappings

DUE Thursday Oct 6

What is a “sound map,” and what does it sound like? Can it make us see?  Feel?  Taste, smell?  Does it need to?  What use or purpose does an aural map have?  What stories can it tell?

What is a “video map”?  What does this format provide that a map on a piece of paper (for example) does not?  How can a video map be different from (more than?) a travelogue or “home video”?

For next week, create either a sound or video map, telling a story that is not your own, but could be.  (“If I was lean and long and six-foot-six…”)  Think about the role of narrative in a map made from sound or video, and what kinds of narrative structures arise naturally within this format.  Remember:  narrative is distinct from “narration.”

Sound maps should be aural-only.  Sound can be recorded or live or a mix of both.  Speech is allowed, but remember that “sound” encompasses much more than “speech”…

Video maps should contain no sound.  Playback can be on a device of your choosing.

For both sound- and video-maps, think about what it means to have a time-based map, one where time is always flowing, in a single direction, as one is experiencing and trying to use the map.

Each map should have a title, and a legend.  Whatever those things might mean in this context…

Video maps should be uploaded to YouTube and embedded in a post on the WordPress site.  However, this is for archival purposes only — we will consider the choice of presentation / playback done in class, rather than the act of watching on YouTube.

Sound maps should be uploaded to the site if they are prerecorded or have significant prerecorded elements.  As with the video maps, we will always consider the actual presentation of the map in class over the document of the map on the site.  If a sound map is to be performed live, or has significant live-performance elements, upload any notes, outlines, lists, sketches you have about that live performance.

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