The article says in the abstract, about differences in distance, speed, and spatial relations between Virtual reality environments and the natural world and how they have been observed in experiments, but how time works within these experiences hasn’t been considered. It’s unknown whether time is expanded or contracted within virtual reality experiences.
It also discusses that the brain will often seek for the time within these virtual reality experiences on internal biological or psychological events or external signals. Such as sunlight, or tiredness. This in turn means that in virtual reality the designer can alter the prospects of time for the player by changing external signals that the body relies on for confirmation of time.
There are also no established measures on how to best assess time judgments in VR. Which makes it difficult to analyse and measure accurately the differences between real life and VR.
In an experiment, participants were given a space to walk in, while wearing a VR helmet and asked once they reached the end of the space how long they felt it took them. On average they felt it was 2.6 seconds shorter than the actual time it took. The article doesn’t speak on whether this was correctly done or if this is a good or bad thing. I think it’s mainly pointing out a phenomenon that requires further studies to analyse a bit more. But it’s an interesting point of VR that I hadn’t considered, how we can alter time and space and change the feeling of time is something powerful. Now I consider how we could possibly do this with sound? Music can make time feel like its going faster if you listen to an album you enjoy, so how can we also implement this phenomenon into a virtual reality space?
We have managed to get Unity working and exported a video of playing the game. We had our final meeting last Thursday and decided for us all to email each other the video and add our new sounds to it. Alongside this, Jingya has managed to get the sounds working into unity. So they’ve now emailed the video to me and all I have to do is add the last new atmospheric sound effects for our crit this Wednesday.
I’m continuing my research into artists, I’ve done Peter Cusack and Annea Lockwood and this one is KMRU. I’m planning to do a practical, based on Cusack’s work and one around KMRU as well. I will be doing some research into his work and ideas and practice to attempt to do it myself. And then in the end I will either combine all three practices or just make my version of it and polish the practical element I created around the artist.
KMRU is an artist I discovered through these Ableton videos I watched on youtube a year or so ago. I hadn’t really listened to his music but found his ideas and theory of his practice to be engaging. As well as his story of how he came to create his experimental music. Following on from this the visiting practitioner series helped me even more so understand his work and I’ve spent some time researching his practice and listening to his music alongside reading his interviews. I want to discuss them here.
KMRU video
KMRU speaks about his early upbringing in the city, listening to the sounds of his city and it being super loud and overstimulating for himself. When his family moved away to the suburbs with their garden facing a nature reserve. He finds himself leaning toward creating meditative and calming music, maybe because he was exposed to so much noise he needed time to slow things down. His ambient music is that for him. Nature was so close to him that he could hear more, and he purchased a recorder to start recording his environment. He started to focus more on the sound around him and to actually listen, in the city he couldn’t focus on one thing due to the noise in the city. He enjoys minimalism in his production, he uses tools or things that are unexpected or what will happen, and he wants limitations. And embracing what happens with it. His shift from thinking more about field recordings is a recent motive of his since moving into Berlin, he finds sound to be the best way to learn and understand our surroundings, you shouldn’t always record but just be and listen and still amongst yourself. He doesn’t want to always listen, he sketches and writes and explains how the surrounding is. He creates textures and melody through ambient, when it blends well, that is the field recordings and music it can work wonders in not knowing what you are hearing.
In this 42-minute field recording workshop, KMRU shows how he field records and composes pieces which is a great insight for me when I go to record and create a piece like him. I found the process of his collection to be interesting, it’s more about interacting with the environment and making noises banging things, alongside normal recordings as well. It was nice to see his Ableton workflow and the plugins and VST he uses.
I also watched his 1-hour set, blending his ambient music together and found it really powerful and it entranced me into peace and being calm. I often find myself stressed and always working and this reminded me to slow down, breathe and relax.
I read this interview about KMRU his work and other things, he speaks on how he works and other aspects of Field recording practice, recording sound and asking for permission but sometimes being denied. The writer who is interviewing him asks him about his previous work, including PEEL his first album that they say was a shift in his work. I will take a listen. An interesting quote he ends with that made me think. Sometimes I wonder if using my voice is too much of an ego in my own craft, and it feels perhaps confusing when I don’t feel like sharing and introverted or sad and field recordings allow this to not be about the person but about us as a collective consciousness in our society.
“An artist who uses his voice as the main instrument, you’re listening to the lyrics. But with field recordings, you’re listening to the surroundings. There’s so much to learn and understand from our surroundings with these sounds. You need to listen.”
KMRU
I listened to Peel while going through my day and found it really peaceful and an interesting juxtaposition of my vision. I was in busy central London going through public transport and people and found that with my noise cancellation I was immersed in this sonic textural soundscapes he’d created, it was beautiful. I enjoy the length of the pieces and their slow development within the pieces, I find in my own practice that the pieces I create are small and short, all about the loops. Whereas this is more progressive and long, an average song for him is 8-10 minutes. Something I’m excited about doing myself.
I also watched this Ableton video of KMRU recording broken instruments and its own kind of magic that is within them. This made me think of the broken mini piano in my own living room we found on our way home one night. I haven’t sampled it but I have thought about it, as he says focusing on the percussive sounds.
I think I’m now ready to create something along the lines of what KMRU does to help inspire my final practical element.