Sound is Not a Simulation - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 48

Bull's (2000) research also highlights how
the perception of time becomes distorted when
listening to personal headphones. For some, listen-
ing is required to manage the boredom of “slow
time”. It is also used to negotiate a path through
space, a path which is experienced through a
virtual soundscape or soundtrack and this alters
the listener's perception of time. Bull's studies
have revealed that time is almost always a reason
for engaging in mediated listening. This concept
of controlling space and time, through mediated
listening, suggests that the senses required for
listening extend beyond simply hearing. If the
experience of listening alters the perception of
time and space then reality also becomes less
fixed and more flexible. Lefebvre (2004) argues
that time and the everyday life exists on multiple
levels and that the experience of time contains a
value coding, depending on the task being done.
He suggests that time is both fundamental and
quantifiable and that quantifiable time is an im-
posed measure which is based on the invention of
clocks and watches. When engaged in mediated
listening (radio, sound art, audio books, and games,
for example), time may be re-appropriated. We are
experiencing what Schafer called a schizophonic
shift in perception, where, by means of medi-
ated listening we exist between two time zones,
one created by our imagination and the other
by the world around us. Devices, such as stereo
headphones, mobile phones and portable games,
which we use to pull us out of time, also act as
filters: they give us the choice to decide what it is
we hear and do not hear. Equally, we can choose
to hear both spaces, real and mediated, so that
we do not become so distracted in our mediated
listening that we walk under a car. The increased
use of mediated listening devices, particularly in
public spaces, might be seen as an adaptation to
the increase in sound levels within urban spaces.
It could also be as a result of the sheer diversity
of sounds that exist within our world, most of
which have no meaning or relevance in our day
to day lives.

There are massive assumptions being posited
by researchers into the field of noise or increased
sound levels. Schafer and the World Forum for
Acoustic Ecology argue that increased sound
levels are creating a rift between the natural world
and humanity's relationship to it. They support
research which is concerned with the “preservation
of natural and traditional soundscapes” (Epstein,
2009). This focus on the conservation of older or
traditional soundscapes ignores the “everyday
urban situations impregnated with blurred and
hazy...sound environments” (Augoyard & Torgue,
2006, p. 6).

NOIsE: tHE sIDE EFFEct
OF INDUstrY

The term noise is often used to describe unwanted
sound or sound that, in its make-up, carries certain
characteristics that define it as negative. Schafer's
early work on the soundscape explored ways of
quantifying noise levels. One of his early explora-
tions into the soundscape used a system of tables
which measured the amount of complaints made
against certain noise sources and this project was
carried out in several countries. Schafer's research
concurred with what most people would suspect:
in most modern cities, traffic is seen as a pollutant
both for carbon emissions as well as sound levels.
Yet in Johannesburg, South Africa, we see a very
different picture in relation to what is seen as noise
and what is accepted as city sounds (Schafer,
1977, p.187). The vast majority of complaints
for sounds considered intrusive or annoying were
made against the increased sounds of animals
and birds within the city: unusually, the smallest
numbers of complaints were directed towards
traffic. It could be argued that one type of sound
is seen as normal and part of the everyday urban
while the more natural sounds no longer fit with
the concept of an urban landscape.