I held my phone out of the car window on Edgewood Ave., and recorded this soundscape. This post attempts to show the effect of the artifact’s represented symbols to my experience.

I closed my eyes and pressed play on my phone. The first thing I heard was a faint horn in the background, I began to visualize traffic. I could hear the cars around me; I could hear the engine of my car revving up, then a screeching, which was probably the breaks of one of the Atlanta Streetcars. I tuned out after the breaking. Then I heard a fast car whizzing-by, it had a cartoon-like sound. Cars in the distance sounded like waves. I could hear the wind, it sounded like a windy day. I heard myself sighing, before turning to a parking lot. I heard the springs of my car as I went over a bump. Most sounds came from cars; I thought I’d hear a wider range in this soundscape. I still found it interesting. On the surface it’s calming. The cars in the distance sound like the sea, and the wind sounds complement the image, but as I listened closer, I began to have a more vivid flashback of when I was actually recording the soundscape. I began to imagine/remember the tension of the commute, and think about the people behind the cars on that cold weekday morning. The horn, the cars whizzing by, the short spurts of acceleration sounds followed by screeching brakes. Finally the sigh, and the sound of car springs over a bump all suggested a tenser mood, which made me not more tense, but more agitated, and interested.