Senses in the City

Senses in the City

Daniele Internicola

Aarhus University, Denmark

Table of contents

Introduction

See the city

Smell the city

Listen to the city

Conclusion

Appendix A

Appendix B

2

Introduction

On the importance of senses.

The man for its very nature, is a multi-sensory creature.

He knows and enjoys the world around him through a lot of sensor

channels.

He knows through his hands that return him pleasure or sorrow.

Through his ears the man is in touch with the extraordinary world of the

sounds.

The man knows through his nose that discloses him an hidden world full

of stinks and smells.

The man could travel around the world without moving from his kitchen

but just closing his eyes and taste an exotic dish, thanks to his sense of

taste.

He knows how to analyze the world around him through his eyes.

So, senses allow us to discover and enjoy places.

The cities we live in are like the heaven for human senses that are run

down by an explosion of information.

Colors, smells, noise; all these things satisfy our desire of information

and discovery.

All these data could be nice or annoying for us.

So, we are accustomed to balance and filter all this data noise.

In this paper i'll try to focus on three of our senses: sight, smell and

hearing senses.

Starting from the sight, that culturally has more importance than other

sense, i'll move towards the sense of smell.

I'll bring as an example my subjective Aarhus smell map.

Finally i'll analyze in three steps the hear sense and its relation with the

city: identify the sounds of the city; use sounds to visit and discover the

city; creating stories inspired by the city sounds.

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See the city

The creative use of maps.

Man is hunger for sight. He creates a big disproportion between sight

sense and the others.

[...]The ear has given away to the eye as the most important gatherer of

environmental information. (Schafer 1973, p.21)

We living in a visual society, where what we see has more weight than

we feel with other senses.

We have a tendency to underestimate the senses other than sight. We

regard sounds and scents, for instance, as being somehow temporary

and incidental (Sepänmaa, 2003, p.82).

Usually people visit or live in a city through the sight sense.

We look at a monument, we are petrified in front of a imposing building,

we enjoy the beauty of the city skyline.

It is difficult to imagine a city, in which its visual form would not be

important (Sepänmaa, 2003, p.76).

To orientate ourself within the city, we use visual landmarks like street

signals, buildings, monuments, parks.

We need something visual to not lose ourself.

Maps could help us.

According to Pinder, maps have long been used in attemps to tame the

urban labyrinth, and to represent its spaces as “legible” and

“knowable” (Pinder, 1996, p. 407).

A map is a portable and easy-readable representation of the key city

landmark.

But map are rarely objective.

As Wood argues, we have forgotten this is a picture someone has

arranged for us [Wood, 1993] (Cited in Pinder, 1996, p.407).

This helping tool is a kind of “precooked summary” of the city.

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Otherwise it is possible to use maps in a creative and personal way, even

if they are made by others.

The effects on how the map is viewed and used can be profound (Pinder,

1996, p.407).

The map could be a valid support to perform an urban exploring

technique called .walk.

Using an algorithm divided in three instructions, we can walking and

looking the city in a different way. Instructions are usually “If X then do

Y” where X is the cause and Y is the action to perform.

We have to follow the instructions cyclically for a stated period of time.

When we perform a .walk could be useful having a map as support to

interpret our experience about our path, later or during the performance.

It is possible to insert as a variable a visual element like see some

person who wears a brown skirt or a brown bag.

We could link this variable to the instruction to turn right on the 1st

street we meet: 1st street right after you meet a person wears

something brown otherwise go straight1.

In this way we could see the city in a creative way and use the map only

to take a note of our path.

We could use maps also as starting point to create a different orientation

tool thanks to our sense of smell, changing maps’ nature,

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1 See Appendix A #4.

Smell the city

"Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of

words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive

power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us

like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally.

There is no remedy for it."

(Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Süskind)

Using our nose to explore the city could be a pleasant or a terrifying

experience. The city is a mosaic of smells. Our sense of smell is often

used to support what we see or it can influences our decision and have

an important role in our city living.

For instance, if we are visiting a new city, we could be guided trough the

streets by signal, landmarks like historical building, squares and so on.

But if a particular smell hits us, we could choose to follow that odor and

choose the direction suggested by it. So what we have in mind, our

perception influence our interpretation of the places we visit.

Debord[1981] aimed 'to examine how subjective feelings and desires are

affected by the geography of the urban environment, and at the same

time how feelings and desires affect and give form to that

geography.' (Cited in Pinder 1996, p.415). Explore the city through our

sense of smell2 is also about our feelings. The smells can be the link to

bring to mind some memories about our past experiences, our important

moments. In that way those smells acquire a really unique meanings. A

particular smell, whether pleasant or disgusting, can contribute to

construct our own memory about the place we explore.

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2 For further information look at Appendix A #1

An example of this kind of experience is that one made by Jason Logan3,

a freelance illustrator, who walked and lived the city by day and by night,

trusting only to his nose.

In an article of NewYork Times, he reports:

“I set out to navigate the city by nose. As my nostrils led me

from Manhattan’s northernmost end to its southern tip, some

prosaic scents recurred (cigarette butts; suntan lotion; fried

foods); some were singular and sublime (a delicate trail of

flowers mingling with Indian curry around 34th Street); while

others proved revoltingly unique (the garbage outside a nail

salon).

[...]Some smells reminded me of other places, and some will

forever remind me of New York. “ 4

Try to track the smells of the city is not a so easy 'work' because of the

myriad of kind of smell and odors that fill the city.

First of all, it's important paying attention to the “sudden change of

ambience in a street within the space of a few metres [...]” [Debord

1981b, p.6-7] (Pinder 1996, p.415). The ambience is made of many

elements, some of those are the smells. You can perceive a smell in a

street that suddenly disappear in the next street to be replaced by other

different smell. Moreover the change is not only related to the space but

also to the time: the smells perceived during the day can be different or

disappear during the night. That difference could be notice also if you

consider the weekdays or the weekend, the winter or the spring. The

smells change continually and this changing depends from the activity

performed in the city, from the people who live in and also from the

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3 An example of this map shown at Appedix B

4 You can found more information on: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/08/29/opinion/20090829-smell-map-feature.html

weather.

As we said, there are a lot of smells spread around the city. Sometimes

they are merged together and it is difficult to distinguish each other or to

perceive an odor rather than the other. For instance, in the street along

the river in Aarhus, often there are strong smells of alcohol, urine and

food mix together. There are also places full of many smell, but one on

all comes out, leaving the other ones in the background, like the smell of

sea near the harbor or the one of food in the main street of Aarhus.

That kind of experience is really subjective because each one can

perceive different smells around the city, depending on which one draw

attention of the person who walk in the city. But there are a lot of smells

common in all the city or connected to a particular city. There are smells

that convey an detailed portrait of a city and it is necessary pay

attention to them in order to acquire important information about the

place we visit.

'Each community has its idiosyncratic sounds, and they should receive

special attention and, if necessary, protection.' (Schafer 1973, p.42).

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Listen to the city.

Find, cut, create

In order to have a detailed and complete portrait of the city, as it is

important pay attention to the different smells, it's fundamental listen to

the sounds spread around the city. The city is identified by them. They

are like its fingerprint.

When we visit a new city, we could enjoy a beautiful landscape as well as

a peculiar soundscape. Schafer identified two kind of soundscapes: hi-fi

and lo-fi.

The hi-fi soundscape is one in which discrete sounds can be heard clearly

because of the low ambient noise level.(Schafer, 1973, p.24)

So, the sea coast sounds, rivers, woods whispers and other types of

sounds that we can find inside a natural context are good examples of

hi-fi soundscape.

The country is generally more hi-fi than the city.(Schafer, 1973, p.24).

Cities and urban zones are generally lo-fi.

According to Schafer, In a lo-fi soundscape individual acoustic signal are

obscured in an over-dense population of sounds.(Schafer, 1973, p.25)

This is a noisy era, in which is really hard to distinguish the single pieces

composing it.

The industrial revolution began to produce lo-fi soundscape (Schafer,

1973, p.25).

The work of Industries and fabrics, evolution of motors and transports

generated tons of new sound information.

Today noise reigns supreme over human sensibility.(Schafer, 1973, p.26)

Even if we live close to these sounds everyday, we don't mind to them.

Our sense of hearing is accustomed to noise.

Let's try to pay attention to our ear.

The city is also to be heard and not only to be seen.

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(Thibaud, 2003, p.330)

We should try to explore not only the city landscape but soundscape too.

By treating the urban landscape as a living source of musical

information,[...] we could [.] challenge old ideas of noise and encourage

people to appreciate the sounds they live with every day in a new way

(Butler, 2006, p.892).

Schafer talks about three types of sounds: natural, human and

technology ones.

Throughout human history we have seen the increase in technological

sounds and the decrease in natural sounds (Schafer, 1973, p. 45).

There are places in which the three kinds of sounds are still “living

together”.

The bicycle path between the Aarhus harbor and the Risskov beaches are

a good example5.

The crow's nest, the bike/walking path and the railroad: nature sound,

human sound, tech sound.

The small wood near the sea are full of crows' nest.

They loudly cry especially during the day.

Close to the wood there are a railroad and a bicycle path.

The cries of crows are covered by the train passing on the railroad.

Between this two sound categories, a third one often comes out:

humans.

The bicycle path are often crowded by men and women.

They run by walk, they take a ride bike, they take a walk, chatting and

talking loudly.

In that peculiar place these three kind of sounds are physically divided in

three different sector.

If we will listen carefully we should be capable to distinguish the different

audio pieces.

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5 For further information look at Appendix A #2

Otherwise, we will lost inside the noise that comes from the mix of the

three ones.

Inside this noise many information and stories are well hidden.

According to Schafer, most sounds of the environment have symbolism.

This symbolism has so far been little explored, but it will have to be

investigated thoroughly if we wish to make meaningful decision as to

which sounds we wish to keep and which we wish to eliminate(Schafer,

1973, p.37).

We should be able to made a selection of information brought by sounds.

This is the first step of hearing the city: sounds selection.

The second step is the exploration of the city following the sounds.

After we have learned how to select and mark sounds, we are ready to

uses these as a tourist guide.

But how?

A good way is to lose ourself within the city and explore it to find our

personal path, with the help of sounds.

As Ariadne's thread helped Theseus to find his way inside the

Labyrinth of the Minotaur, in the same way sounds help us to find a path

inside the city.

Sounds could be used to draw attention to the urban landscape.

(Butler, 2006, p.892)

An example of the application of this technique could be the .walk

again.

If you insert as instruction something linked to the ears sphere, your

walk through the city will be influenced by the sounds.

In the .walk created by other group6, the sound factor was fundamental.

The instruction was turn over 180° every time you hear some heel

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6 For further information look at Appendix A #4.1

ticking.

This kind of audio randomness guide the performer through street and

hidden alley. It is possible to find some hidden place, simply identifying a

sound and following it.

In this way we could rewriting conventional maps to reveal some of ‘the

other cities that exist inside the city’.

(Pinder, 2001, p.8)

So we are able to discover an hidden “sound city” inside the visible city.

Sounds city made of sounds that could remember you also other places

and past moments of your life.

But can we use this audio pieces to create something?

The third step is the creation of stories, in which the city sounds are part

of them.

We know how to select sounds from the context's noise.

We know how to use these to lost ourself within the city, and how to find

our path.

Are we only passive listener of the city or could we play and interact with

its sounds?

Schafer ask himself a similar question:

Is the soundscape of the world an indeterminate composition over which

we have no control or are we its composers and performers, responsible

for giving it form and beauty?

(Schafer, 1973, p.15).

The city is like a big puzzle and we know how to recognize every single

pieces.

We only have to choose the pieces and play with the city.

When the soundscape is as dynamic as it is today new sounds are

constantly appearing and others are disappearing.

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(Schafer, 1973, p.42).

It's a creative work.

First we decontextualize sounds of the city; then we give them some

sense (if we can't find one) and finally we ricompose the entire puzzle,

using only the pieces that we like.

So, we are able to create stories and this is an excuse to visit and to

listen to the city in a different way7.

The stories (and the single pieces of which are composed) make audible

[...] what usually goes to unnoticed(Jean-Paul Thibaud, 2003, p.331).

Walking in search of peculiar sounds, that stimulate our fantasies, we

reveal the hidden sides of the city. (Jean-Paul Thibaud, 2003, p.330)

But is this a subjective work, linked to our relation with the places we

explore?

Well, partly yes, partly no.

The subjective and personal part of this kind of play is represented by

our feelings.

When we found sounds within the city we are exploring the connections

between self and city.

(Pinder, 2001, p.16)

We choose sounds that bring with them our past memories, sounds that

trigger strong emotions or sounds that we associated to other place,

things, senses or people.

We give significance and importance to sounds that other people ignore.

So what make this work subjective is how we understand and how we

link the sounds to our life.

The objective part is represented by the nature of some kind of sounds,

that are unquestionably linked to a precise city place.

Everyone is able to hear common city sounds as church bell, sirens, car

traffic etc etc.

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7 For further information look at Appendix A # 5

The difference between a listener and another listener is the perception

and the meanings of those sounds.

The meanings that we give to city sounds could stimulate our fantasy

and creativity to generate stories and possible situations.

The construction of situations was described as “the concrete

construction of momentary ambiances of life and their transformation

into a superior passional quality” (Debord, 1957) [...](McGarrigle, 2009,

p.2).

Picture yourself taking a walk near the city harbor8.

Suddenly, you heard the sound of a boat and you could imagine that

sound as the starting piece of a pirate story, helping by people scream

near the quay:

“A pirate boat approaching the city harbor. Can you listen the people

screaming?”

Then you could decide to follow someone with heel shoes, imagining that

he runs away from the pirates:

“I should follow the sounds of heel ticking. Some girl could be in

danger!”

Following this girl, you could move away from the harbor.

You could start to walk within the city alleys, in search of new sounds

element to continues and complete this story.

In this way you explore the city, creating situations by sounds.

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8 I performed a test of sound story in Aarhus.

Conclusion

All this works show us the importance of other human senses to

exploring the places.

The city is a place that could be experienced with all five senses of

human being.

We are accustomed to use primarily the sight sense and the other senses

are used in support of that.

Shifting the attention to the other senses could give us a totally different

experience.

Moreover the creative use of them allow us to play with the city.

As explained in previous chapter, if we try to identify the different sounds

that composing the city soundscape, we could enjoy and discover hidden

place inside the city.

The play of creating stories based on sounds could be played alone or

together with other people, sharing experiences, feelings and opinions.

The stories that we create, are often different one from each other and

this is interesting.

We start with sounds that are both peculiar of a place, occasional or

strange.

Basically we are able to recognize the common sounds of a city but how

we combine them changes from person to person.

We need to rediscover or discover the city, combining all the experiences

filtered by senses.

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References

Butler, Toby, (2006), “A walk of art: the potential of the sound walk as

practice in cultural geography”, Social & Cultural Geography, 7 (6), 889 -

908. http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/14649360601055821

De Souza e Silva, Adriana, (2006), “From Cyber to Hybrid: Mobile

Technologies as Interfaces of Hybrid Spaces”, Space and Culture, 9

Logan, Jason, 2009, “Scents and the city”, The New York Times, Retrived

on: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/08/29/opinion/20090829-

smell-map-feature.html

McGarrigle, Conor, (2009). “The construction of locative situations :

locative media and the Situationist International, recuperation or redux?”

in Simon Penny (ed.), DAC - Digital Arts and Culture 2009 (UC Irvine).

Pinder, D. (1996), “Subverting cartography: the situationists and maps

of the city”, Environment and Planning A, 28 (3), 405-27.

http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=a280405

Pinder, David, (2001), “Ghostly Footsteps: Voices, Memories and Walks

in the City”, Cultural Geographies, 8 (1), 1-19.

http://cgj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/1/1

Sepänmaa, Yrjö. (2003).Multi-sensoriness and the city.

KOHT ja PAIK / PLACE and LOCATION ,

Studies in Environmental Aesthetics and Semiotics , 3(14),

464. Retrieved in:

www.eki.ee/km/place/pdf/kp3_04_Sepanmaa.pdf

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Schafer, R. Murray, (1973), “The music of the environment”, Cultures, 1

(1), 15-51.

Süskind, Patrick. (1986). Perfume. Hamish Hamilton.

Thibaud, J.-P. (2003). “The sonic composition of the city”. In M. Bull & L.

Back (Eds.), The Auditory Culture Reader. London: Berg, 329-342.

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Appendix A

#1 Aarhus Smell map

I tried to explore it following my nose.

I chose a little part of the city center even if is ti possible to apply this

type of map to entire city.

The circles represent different kind of smells.

More smell big circle

I divided the different scents in 5 type that more spread around the

city : Food, Urine, Leather and plastic, the river and the sea.

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#2 Audiostand

I recorded the audio fragment on the bicycle way from Riisskov to

Aarhus. I was really impressed by the crows and the magical atmosphere

of the place. Few seconds later, this kind of peace was broken by the

train noise. After the chaos, the peace has been restored again.

Retrievable on: http://communicity2010.wikidot.com/daniele-internicola

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#3 Hybrid Space

Mobnotes9 is a software/community allows you

to share your activities,emotions and thoughts

related(embedded) to your preferred places.

This software seems like Gbuzz but i used it

since 2009, when Buzz didn't exist. Mobnotes

is a digital way to communicate but is

continually linked to the physical world.

When users move around different places,

they share their experiences (geo-localized)

with the whole community. Other users can

use these data to create or modify their

experience. The tools used to do these kind of things are mobile phones

and PDA (Normally i used my Ipod). "Hybrid spaces merge the physical

and the digital in a social environment created by the mobility of users

connected via mobile technology devices."

(De Souza e Silva, Adriana, 2006, p.6) "Conversely, mobile interfaces

are defined as cell phones, PDAs, and Palmptops, that is, interfaces that

allow our connection to the Internet while moving through physical

space.11 These interfaces literally allow us to “carry the digital space”

with us. As a consequence, mobility becomes part of the process of

connecting to the digital and exploring hybrid spaces."

(De Souza e Silva, Adriana, 2006, p.17)

In my example, Hybrid Space is the mashup between User's Experience,

Physical place, Community and a Network, all mediated by digital

devices.

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9 http://www.mobnotes.com/

# 4 .Walk

//Ah, Brown!!! (group 2B)

repeat for 1 hour

[

1st street left

1st street right after you meet a person wears something brown

otherwise go straight.

2st street left

]

We decided to start our a.walk from the crossroad between Rosensgade

and Bispegade. During our a.walk, when we randomly reached

Stentrappen, we weren't able to follow the 2nd command.

There wasn't anyone that wore a brown stuff, so we went straight and

we reached a small and sad courtyard. After 59 minutes by walk, we

found a bug and we decided to stop.

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# 4.1 Other group .Walk

//Å + ticking heels .walk

repeat for 1 hour

[

2nd street right

1st street left after you see an "Å" somewhere

Turn over 180° after you hear some heel ticking

]

We decided to start the a.walk from the corner between Immervad and

Lille Torv (close to Magasin and 7Eleven). We spent about 15 minutes

going straight on Kystvejen because we couldn't hear heels ticking.

We entered in a loop walking from Kystvejen to Helgenægade and vice

versa.About 10 minutes for 100 mt!

3.We passed through the Arkitektskolen Aarhus because we didn't hear

heels ticking.

4.When we came out from the Arkitektskolen courtyard, we arrived in

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Paradisgade street. We were in front of Cafè Paradis.

After 55 minutes, we couldn't hear that annoying sound, we couldn't go

straight on, so we deicided to stop and have a coffee in the cafè.

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# 5 Misguide

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Appendix B

Scents and the City

©Jason Logan

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